Barry heard him quite unmoved, stood looking after him in silence a moment or two, then, shaking his head, with a puzzled expression on his face, moved slowly away from the group.
"Oh, my aunt Caroline," breathed Sally into his friend Hopeton's ear, resting heavily meanwhile against his shoulder.

"What a score! What a score!" "A bull, begad! a clean bull!" murmured Hopeton, supporting his friend out of the room as he added, "A little fresh air, as a preventative of vertigo, as the old doc says, eh, Sally." "Good Lord, is he just a plain ass, or what ?" inquired young Booth, his eye following Barry down the room.
"Ass! A mule, I should say.

And one with a good lot of kick in him," replied Captain Train.

"I don't know that I care for that kind of an animal, though." Before many hours had passed, the whole battalion had received with undiluted joy an account of the incident, for though the Commanding Officer was popular with his men, to have him called down at his own mess by one of his own officers was an event too thrilling to give anything but unalloyed delight to those who had to suffer in silence similar indignities at the hands of their officers.
A notable exception in the battalion, however, was Sergeant Major McFetteridge, who, because of his military experience, and of his reputation as a disciplinarian, had been recently transferred to the battalion.

To the sergeant major this act of Barry's was but another and more flagrant example of his fondness for "buttin' in," and the sergeant major let it be known that he strongly condemned the chaplain for what he declared was an unheard of breach of military discipline.
Of course there were others who openly approved, and who admired the chaplain's "nerve in standing up to the old man." In their opinion he was entirely justified in what he had said.