That distant figure will be Brother Flavio, of the Franciscan Order, and
the old boy is going to ramp up and down in front of those chimes with a
hammer and give me a concert. He'll bang out 'Adeste Fideles' and
'Gloria in Excelsis.' That's a cinch, because he's a creature of habit.
Occasionally he plays 'Lead, Kindly Light' and 'Ave Maria'!"
Farrel paused, a faint smile of amusement fringing his handsome mouth.
He rolled and lighted a cigarette and continued:
"My father wrote me that old Brother Flavio, after a terrible battle with
his own conscience and at the risk of being hove out of the valley by his
indignant superior, Father Dominic, was practising 'Hail, The Conquering
Hero Comes!' against the day of my home-coming. I wrote father to tell
Brother Flavio to cut that out and substitute 'In the Good Old
Summertime' if he wanted to make a hit with me. Awfully good old hunks,
Brother Flavio! He knows I like those old chimes, and, when I'm home, he
most certainly bangs them so the melody will carry clear up to the
Palomar."
The captain was gazing with increasing amazement upon his former first
sergeant. After eighteen months, he had discovered a man he had not
known heretofore."
"And after the 'Angelus'--what?" he demanded.
Farrel's smug little smile of complacency had broadened.
"Well, sir, when Brother Flavio pegs out, I'll get up and run down to the
Mission, where Father Dominic, Father Andreas, Brother Flavio, Brother
Anthony, and Brother Benedict will all extend a welcome and muss me up,
and we'll all talk at once and get nowhere with the conversation for the
first five minutes.
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