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downtown stationery stores. She said she had and got it out of her purse. It was in her strange, French handwriting, with crossbars on the 7’s, accent marks, and all kind of small touches I wasn’t familiar with. Also, it smelled like Russian Leather. I kissed it, then buried my nose in her ruffle. She pushed her two big bulges to my cheeks, and for a moment, as my arm went around her, it was holy again, and close.
    But her father was a man of ice when I lined things out for him. By then they’d given him a brazier, and he stood over it warming his hands as I brought him down to date, and suggested he “consider a plea.” “I will not plead,” he kept saying over and over. “I will not, not , NOT plead—and I’m astonished, Mr. Cresap, you would urge such a thing on me. Apart from general considerations, it involves a point of honor, the admission of an act I didn’t commit, and therefore am not guilty of. I will not plead.”
    “Nobody’s asking you to.”
    “I—I beg your pardon, sir?”
    “I suggested that you consider it.”
    “That I consider it? ... And then what?”
    “Well, you’ve got nothing else to do, at least that I can see, but put charcoal on that fire. Can’t you consider some more?”
    “... Consider? And then consider?”
    “And—consider.”
    He looked at me quite a while, took some turns around the brazier, then fetched up facing me. “Mr. Cresap,” he said, “you may consider me as considering.”
    “That’s all I want to know.”
    So far, except for some stalling around, getting ready to start, I was strictly nowhere, but then, unexpectedly, I went ten leaps down the road. I went up to the Judge Advocate’s office and was referred by the sergeant to a major named Jenkins. He was a tall, thin, pale man, with a black, spade-cut beard, who kept me standing beside his table and looked at papers as we talked. I led off, as soon as I’d given my name and reported myself as counsel, by asking what my client was charged with. “No charge as yet,” he said. “He’s being held for investigation—as I’d think you’d know by now, if you’re serving as his counsel.”
    “What charge if I get him to plead?”
    “Parole violation.”
    “He hasn’t been given parole that I know of.”
    “All these people are technically under parole—if they don’t like it that way, they can let us know and we’ll fix it by putting them in the stockade.”
    “What’s the penalty for parole violation?”
    “Confiscation, of course. In return for a declaration of assets, we recommend to the court suspension of penal servitude.”
    “Isn’t that pretty stiff?”
    “Perhaps you’d prefer I sent his papers to the U.S. Attorney, who can ask indictment for treason?”
    “Treason, Major? Are you serious?”
    “Shipping shoes to the enemy’s not treason?”
    “No shoes were shipped to the enemy!”
    He went into a perfect rage, saying the fact the shoes were shipped was prima facie proof of who got them, and winding up: “If you think it’s stiff that a man who would do such a thing be let off with parole violation, then all I can say is you take a damned light view of this war.”
    “I was wounded in this war.”
    “Oh my! And that entitles you to what?”
    “A seat, I would think.”
    He started a loud uproar, having orderlies bring me a chair, and then when I wouldn’t take it got furious all over again. By then, I was furious at myself for doing so badly, but made myself shut up and stood there saying nothing. He said: “Cresap, if I may say so, you could learn from your client’s partner, who was in a short while ago, and successfully made an appeal for the reduction of this charge to parole violation, the absolute minimum possible. He did it through courtesy.”
    “We could all use a little of that.”
    “Are you starting up again?”
    How it might have turned out I don’t know, but about that time the sergeant tiptoed over, bent down and whispered, and the major jumped