judge Lucy by her James!"

A divorce case was before the courts, and it was much discussed
everywhere. The wife had been jealous and suspicious, and blond hairs
(she was very dark herself) and strange hair-pins held a ludicrous
prominence in the evidence. "Ah!" said Fisk, "that's not the kind of a
wife I have! Never, _never_ does Lucy surprise me with a visit, God bless
her! No, she always telegraphs me when she's coming, and I--I clear up
and have a warm welcome for her, and then she's pleased, and that pleases
me, and we both enjoy our visit. Hang'd if we don't! And just to show you
what a hero--yes, a _hero_--she is, and, talking of hair-pins, let me
tell you now. You know those confounded crooked ones, with three infernal
crinkles in the middle to keep them from falling out of the hair? Those
English chorus-girls wear them, I'm told. Well, one day Lucy comes to see
me. Oh, she had sent word as usual, and everything was cleared up (I
supposed) as usual, and George, my man, was laying out some clothes for
me, when Lucy, smoothing her hand over the sofa-cushion, picks up and
holds to the light an infernal crinkled hair-pin. George turned white and
looked pleadingly at me. I saw myself in court fighting a divorce like
the devil; and then, after an awful, perspiring silence, my Lucy
says--she that has worn straight pins all her life: 'James, that is a
lazy and careless woman that cares for your rooms. It's three weeks
to-day since I left for home, and here is one of my hair-pins lying on
the sofa ever since!'

"If she had put it in her hair I should have thought her really deceived
in the matter, but when she dropped it in the fire, I knew she was just a
plain hero! I walked over and knelt down and said: 'Thank you, Lucy,'
while I pretended to tie her shoe. George was so upset that he dropped
the studs twice over he was trying to put into a shirt-front. Oh, I tell
you my Lucy can't be beat!"

The time he won the name of "Jubilee Jim," when the whole country was
laughing over his triumphant visit to Boston with his regiment, he made
this unsmiling explanation of the matter:

"You see, the Ninth and I were both tickled over the invitation to visit
Boston, and as there were so many of us I paid the expenses myself.
Being proud of the regiment and anxious it should be acquainted with all
real American institutions, I arranged for it to stay over Sunday, for
there were dozens of the boys who had never even seen a slice of