'Oh, no, sir. There's much more.'
'Are you a Baptist?'
'No, sir.'
'Then you are not a Baptist, aren't you?'
'Sir?'
'I don't see why you're bickering with me on that point. You'v
e already admitted it. Now, Chaplain, to say you're not a Baptist doesn't really tell us anything about what you are, does it? You could be anything or anyone.' He leaned forward slightly and his manner took on a shrewd and significant air. 'You could even be,' he added, 'Washington Irving, couldn't you?'
'Washington Irving?' the chaplain repeated with surprise.
'Come on, Washington,' the corpulent colonel broke in irascibly. 'Why don't you make a clean breast of it? We know you stole that plum tomato.' After a moment's shock, the chaplain giggled with nervous relief. 'Oh, is that it!' he exclaimed. 'Now I'm beginning to understand. I didn't steal that plum tomato, sir. Colonel Cathcart gave it to me. You can even ask him if you don't believe me.' A door opened at the other end of the room and Colonel Cathcart stepped into the basement as though from a closet.
'Hello, Colonel. Colonel, he claims you gave him that plum tomato. Did you?'
'Why should I give him a plum tomato?' answered Colonel Cathcart.
'Thank you, Colonel. That will be all.'
'It's a pleasure, Colonel,' Colonel Cathcart replied, and he stepped back out of the basement, closing the door after him.
'Well, Chaplain? What have you got to say now?'
'He did give it to me!' the chaplain hissed in a whisper that was both fierce and fearful. 'He did give it to me!'
'You're not calling a superior officer a liar are you, Chaplain?'
'Why should a superior officer give you a plum tomato, Chaplain?'
'Is that why you tried to give it to Sergeant Whitcomb, Chaplain? Because it was a hot tomato?'
'No, no, no,' the chaplain protested, wondering miserably why they were not able to understand. 'I offered it to Sergeant Whitcomb because I didn't want it.'
'Why'd you steal it from Colonel Cathcart if you didn't want it?'
'I didn't steal it from Colonel Cathcard'
'Then why are you so guilty, if you didn't steal it?'
'I'm not guilty!'
'Then why would we be questioning you if you weren't guilty?'
'Oh, I don't know,' the chaplain groaned, kneading his fingers in his lap and shaking his bowed and anguished head. 'I don't know.'
'He thinks we have time to waste,' snorted the major.
'Chaplain,' resumed the officer without insignia at a more leisurely pace, lifting a typewritten sheet of yellow paper from the open folder, 'I have a signed statement here from Colonel Cathcart asserting you stole that plum tomato from him.' He lay the sheet face down on one side of the folder and picked up a second page from the other side. 'And I have a notarized affidavit from Sergeant Whitcomb in which he states that he knew the tomato was hot just from the way you tried to unload it on him.'
'I swear to God I didn't steal it, sir,' the chaplain pleaded with distress, almost in tears. 'I give you my sacred word it was not a hot tomato.'
'Chaplain, do you believe in God?'
'Yes, sir. Of course I do.'