His toilet completed, he took a clean shirt from a bundle on one of the neatly arranged shelves and donned the garment.

A few more touches, and, spick-and-span, clean and very soldierly looking, he descended to the ground floor.
A glance into the mess-room showed him that the noon meal was not yet ready, so be sauntered to the doorway, remaining just inside out of the sun's rays.
Other officers gathered quickly.

A waiter from mess appeared at the inner doorway, speaking a quiet word that caused the regiment's officers, except the colonel and his staff, to file inside.
Plain pine tables, without cloths, long pine benches nailed to the floor---officers' mess was exactly like that of the enlisted men, save that officers' mess was provided with heavy crockery, while in the company mess-rooms the men ate from aluminum mess-kits.
Most of the food was already in place on the table.

The meal began with a lively hum of conversation.

Occasionally some merry officer called out jokingly to some officer at another table; there was no special effort at dignified silence.
"The K.O.has our number!" exclaimed an irrepressible lieutenant.
"How so ?" demanded Noll Terry, Prescott's first lieutenant.
"He knows us for a bunch of shirkers, and so he gave us the 'pep' talk this morning." "Is the 'pep' going to work with you ?" asked Noll laughingly.
"Surely! I wouldn't dare be slow, even in drawing my breath, after hearing the K.O.talk in that fashion." "Same here," Noll nodded.
"I've been working sixteen hours a day ever since I hit camp," chimed in another lieutenant.