it rained. I suppose you have heard of the
shoddy uniforms?"

"Yes, and I was amazed at such a fraud."

"Well, I wasn't born in the woods to be
scared at an owl. I know our folks. Some of
'em keep a conscience. Mostly the article's too
expensive. I do know men who won't cheat one
another, but I don't know one who won't cheat
a corporation, or the government. Pay, politically,
means plunder."

"But you do not justify these gigantic frauds
on your government, Mr. Grierson?"

"Look o' here, now. I am an honest fellow,
as you have found me. I wouldn't contract
for good clothes, and sell shoddy. I would feel
too much for the poor soldiers, to do such a
mean contemptible thing, let alone being
honest. I would never sell a lame blind
spavined horse for a sound one. I would never
sell shoes with pasteboard soles, instead of
leather. I would never enlist men, and share the
bounty money, and then get the surgeon to condemn
them, and then list 'em again in another
regiment, and share the bounty over again, and
keep on that way, as long as it would pay. All
these things, and a great many more of the same
sort, are done every day and every hour in the day.
I tell you I would not do them. I should feel
insulted if any man, who is a man, thought I
would; but I'll tell you what I would do and
could do with a clear conscience. If I could
get a good fat contract to furnish anything for
double the value of the thing furnished, I'd take
it, and I'd sell my contract for all I could get.
I believe in turning an honest penny."

"And cheating your government?"

"A thing is worth to me what I can get
for it."

"You would sell a coat to me for ten dollars,
and take twenty from your government, Mr.
Grierson?"

"I would."

"And you would not consider that you were
robbing yourself in fact, with the rest of your
people; for all this must be paid for in
taxes?"

"Never you believe that. Providence may
make us pay for this war. I sometimes think
it will, somehow. But Providence can't make
us pay taxes. No, sirree! We will slip from
under the load, someway. I don't see exactly
how — but leave eels alone to learn how to
squirm. I've seen 'em fling themselves out of
the frying-pan after they were skinned."

"And into the fire?"

"Well, that's their affair, don't you see?
Now, does not Broadway beat all creation?
Does not our white marble world look as though
it had just been created and bathed in new
sunshine? Look o' here, now. This is Union-square,
where we have out-door political meetings."

"Are you a republican, Mr. Grierson?"

"I reckon, I be just that."

"And you are an anti-slavery man?"

"Up to the hub! But I don't want the
niggers North."

"What do you want done with them?"

" Well, it's a long story. I want 'em to
keep out of my way, unless I am South, and
then they may wait upon me. I tell you what,
we are a queer mixture. Anyhow, we are a great
country, and can raise a million of soldiers in no
time."

"And clothe them in shoddy uniform that will
last till the first shower; and shoe them with
pasteboard equally durable."

"Exactly; but here we are!"

We were in front of a white marble edifice,
and two sentinels were standing before the
entrance, one on each side. The building was
magnificent, and a large adjacent square aided
its fine effect.

Presently we were at the clerk's office.

" Your room? Ah! your room," said the
clerk. "Colonel Blank has it, but he leaves
with his staff this afternoon. Just step forward,
gentlemen; he is coming."

We passed on, but remained still in the
vicinity of the clerk's cage. The colonel came
in with his regimental paymaster, and called out
to the clerk, "Here, you sir!"

"I am here," civilly responded the clerk.

"Just hand over de money dat pelongs to our
regiment in your safe; we are off to Washington
dis afternoon."

"There is your bill, colonel," said the clerk,
putting before him an official-looking piece of
paper.

"Tam de pill; tam all pills," said the officer,
not even deigning to look at the amount. He
and his staff had held high carnival with their
friends for several days at this hotel; the bill for
dinners, champagne, &c., amounted to some
three hundred pounds.

"You must pay this, colonel, or allow me to
take the amount from the regimental funds, or I
cannot return your money."

I decline to report the reply of the colonel.
Being interpreted, it was an assurance to the
clerk that he would not " bay de pill;" that he
would see the clerk in the centre of the most
tropical region of the next world, before he
would bay de pill; that the government might
bay de pill, or go to the same no latitude.

The clerk remained firm under this torrent of
German- American-English. The colonel, in his
rage, sent the paymaster for the sentries at the
door, and ordered them to charge upon the clerk,
and compel him to deliver the funds.

The clerk took a revolver from the desk
before him. "There are four of you," he said;
There are six bullets here. Who wants the
first one?"

He fixed his eye on the colonel, and it looked
as though it would bore a hole through him,
without the bullet.

"Petter bay de pill," whispered the paymaster
to the colonel.

The bully in the colonel was cowed, and the
paymaster saw that he might act. "l am de
one to bay pills," said he.

An amicable surrender of the funds, minus the
amount of the bill, was soon effected, the clerk