Rebels, he arrived in camp. He had picked up by the way an ill-favored assistant, whose tent stood on the hill side some little distance from the right flank of the regiment.

Two nights after his arrival there was a commotion in camp. A tonguey corporal, slightly under regulation

size, in an exuberance of spirits, had mounted a cracker-box almost immediately in front of the sutler's tent, and commenced a lively harangue. He told how he had left a profitable grocery business to serve his country—his pecuniary sacrifices—but above all, the family he had left behind.

"And you've blissed them by taking your characther with you," chimed in the little Irish corporal.

"Where did you steal your whiskey?" demanded a second.

The confusion increased, the crowd was dispersed by the guard, all at the expense of the sutler's credit, as it was rumored that he had furnished the stimulant.

The sutler indignantly demanded an investigation, and three officers, presumed to possess a scent for whiskey above their fellows, were detailed for the duty. One of these was our friend the Virginia captain.

Under penalty of losing his stripes, the corporal confessed that he had obtained the liquor at the baker's. Thither the following evening the detail repaired. The assistant denied all knowledge of the liquor. He was confronted with the corporal, and admitted the charge, and that but three bottles remained.

"By ——," said our Western Virginia captain, hands in pocket, "I smell ten more. There are just thirteen bottles or I'll lose my straps."

The confidence of the captain impressed the detail, and they went to work with a will—emptying barrels of crackers, probing with a bayonet sacks of flour, etc. A short search, to the pretended amazement of the assistant, proved the correctness of the captain's scent. The baker was sent for, and with

indignant manner and hands lifted in holy horror, he poured volley after volley of invective at the confounded assistant.

"But, gentlemen," said the baker, dropping his tone, "I've known worse things than this to happen. I've known even bakers to get tight."

"And your bacon would have stood a better chance of being saved if you had got tight, instead of putting a non-commissioned officer in that condition," said one of the detail. "The Colonel, I am afraid, Tom, will clear you out."

"Well," sighed the baker, after a pause of a moment, "talk about Job and all the other unfortunates since his day, why not one of them had my variety of suffering. Did you ever hear any of my misfortunes?"

"We see one."

"My life has been a series of mishaps. I prosper occasionally in small things, but totals knock me. God help me if I hadn't a sure port in a storm—a self-supporting wife. For instance—but I can't commence that story without relieving my thirst." A bottle was opened, drinks had all around, and the baker continued—

"You see, gentlemen, when Simon was in political power, I waggled successfully and extensively among the coal mines in Central Pennsylvania. In those localities voters are kept underground until election day, and they then appear above often in such unexpected force as to knock the speculations of unsophisticated politicians. But Simon was not one of that stripe. He knew his men—the real men of influence; not men that have big reputations created by active but less widely known under-workers, but the under-workers themselves. Simon dealt with these, and he

rarely mistook his men. Now I was well known in those parts—kept on the right side of the boys, and the boys tried to keep on the right side of me, and Simon knew it. No red tape fettered Simon, as the boys say it tied our generals the other side of Sharpsburg in order to let the Rebs have time to cross. If the measures that his shrewd foresight saw were necessary for the suppression of this Rebellion, at its outbreak, had been adopted, we would be encamped somewhat lower down in Dixie than the Upper Potomac—if indeed there would be any necessity for our being in service at all.

"He was not a man of old tracks, like a ground mole; indeed like some military commanders who seem lost outside of them; but of ready resources and direct routes, gathering influence now by one means and then by another, and perhaps both novel. Now Simon set me at work in this wise.

"'Tom,' one morning, says an old and respected citizen of our place, who knew my father and my father's father, and me as an unlucky dog from my cradle, 'Tom, did ever any idea of getting a permanent and profitable position—say, as you are an excellent penman—as clerk in one of the departments at Harrisburg or Washington, enter your head?'

"At this I straightened up, drew up my shirt collar, pulled down my vest, and said with a sort of hopeful inquiry, 'Why should there?'

"'Tom, you are wasting your most available talent. Do you know that you have influence—and political influence at that?'

"Another hitch at my shirt collar and pull at my vest, as visions of the Brick Capitol at Harrisburg and the White one at Washington danced before my eyes.