keeping his revolver in convenient proximity
during the transaction. The colonel and his
men withdrew, and the clerk called out cheerfully,
"Here's the key, Grierson. You can have
your baggage up, and the chambermaid will do
up the room while you are at dinner. I can't
answer for the way in which the pigs have left
the premises."

Jeremiah took the key. " Do we go up on
the live-stock dumb-waiter?" he asked.

"Oh no, that got out of order in a week;
everybody goes up the natural way."

"That's mean. It was part of the attraction
here that we were all to levitate."

"Part of the advertisement, you should say.
You surely ain't so green as to think we'd keep
the thing up, after the house was filled."

"Well, you ought to be a colonel, anyhow,
for the way you managed to get that bill
paid."

"Not colonel of a regiment of German
blackguards, I hope," said the clerk, turning to
some new comers, as if nothing particular had
happened.

Jeremiah led the way into a parlour nearly
all mirrors and sofas, and said, " You rest here.
I'll reconnoitre. I have got more breath than
you have." Presently he returned. " It was a
rose-leaf room when I left it. It is a stable
now; but Kitty Maguire will do her best this
afternoon, and by bedtime I can see you installed.
Then Muster and I will be a real blessing to
mothers, up at Thirty-first Street. I have two
sisters up there; both got crying babies, bad
health, and worse servants. To-morrow morning
I hope to hear from Mordant, and possibly from
the bishop, though I may see him at Jersey
City. I shall go over there and comfort little
pink and white. I'll carry the baby some
flowers, and the boy a drum and gun, and
bestow Muster there, for his safety and the
protection of his friends; and in the evening
I'll go on to Washington and report progress."
In the evening my room was ready, and my
friend took his leave. " I may never see you
again," he said; " but you, and I, and Muster,
will always be good friends. Won't we, sir?"
he said to the dog, pulling his ears. He often
said sir to the dog, seldom to me, unless greatly
in earnest, and then he said " Sir ree." He rose
to go; I clasped his extended hand cordially.

"I hope we may meet again," I said.

"Risky, risky," he replied. " You are right
side up, and there's nobody trying to pitch you
over. I have my own case to 'tend to. I like
you, like you was a brother, and so does the
dorg. Here, Muster, shake hands."

And Jeremiah went away with a kind heart
under his vest, whatever might be said of the
clearness of his head or the correctness of his
conscience.

Such was the pressure of the New World on
my mind, that I did not think to inquire how I
could communicate with my friend, or ask him
to let me know the fate of Mordant, when he
should learn it.

I had no idea how much alone I could feel,
until Jeremiah and his dog had left me. Night,
and loneliness, and confusion, seemed to close
around me in the Babel of a city. I went to
bed, and tried to reason with my feelings. I
speedily reasoned myself to sleep.

Life in an American hotel consists in eating
your way with incredible rapidity through an
astonishingly long bill of fare, in drinking what
you choose to pay for, and in being alone in a
crowd. Everywhere around me, was war.
Camps, recruiting-offices, and what Jeremiah
called "an Indian summer foliage of flags" on
all buildings. Long processions of men and
boys, barefoot, ragged, young and old, ill and
well, were marched through the city to the
camps. They were of all sorts and sizes. Few
of all these were born Americans. They had
come from " all over" to seek their fortune, and
they had found it. There was a camp of Zouaves
near my hotel. They were picked men wearing
turbans— Germans, Irish, English, American;
any one who was tall enough, and stout enough,
could be one of them. I learned afterwards that
they went into the war twelve hundred. They
came away one day, from the field of battle,
when the fight was raging furiously, because
their " time was out," They had no homes to
defend on the field, no wives or children to fight
for. Why, then, should they not secure their
own safety: especially as they had lost, in mercenary
service, eight hundred of their number?
And yet there were no tall men, on that day of
battle, on the other side, whose " time was out"
— except those whose time was out for ever,
and who could never again enlist upon this
earth.

My letters brought friends around me, and I
soon found myself in a palatial home in Staten
Island. Here among camps, tents, and barracks,
and the order and disorder of forming
men for soldiers, I spent some weeks, and had
my share of adventures. When I was settled
with my friends at Staten Island, I went over to
Jersey City. I found the Columbia House on the
edge of a pretty green field, with fruit-trees and
shrubbery, and I was pleased to find the children
resting for a time in such a home. I was shown
into a drawing-room darkened from the brilliant
light and heat, and I was glad when I was encumbered
in the dim light by the two children
and Muster, and felt myself collared by Jeremiah,
who exclaimed, "I'm as glad as the dorg
to see you, and no mistake." The sweet and
gentle greeting of Mrs. Pendleton contrasted
strongly with all the rest. I soon perceived
that she was pale and agitated, and Jeremiah
drew me away for a walk.

We went out into the grounds, and were soon
in a cozy little summer-house.

"I have got something to say," said Jeremiah,
taking the dog's ears in hand. " I got
that note from Mordant, and I have seen him
to-day. Curses, like chickens, come home to
roost, and blessings have the same domestic
habits, I am thankful to know. When Mordant
was in London he lodged with a worthy widow
named Masterton. The widow's husband had