pply pumps. May I be hanged
if they had not sucked in, somehow, a long string of yarn, and cloth,
and, if you will believe me, a wire of some woman's crinoline. And that
French folly of a sham Empress cut short that day the victory of the
Confederate navy, and old Davis himself can't tell when we shall have
such a chance again!"

Some of the men thought Norton lied. But I never was with him when he
did not tell the truth. I did not mention, however, what I had thrown
into the water the last time I had gone over to Manchester. And I
changed my mind about Sarah's "secret-service" parcel. It remained on
my table.

That was the last dinner our old club had at the Spotswood, I believe.
The spring came on, and the plot thickened. We did our work in the
office as well as we could; I can speak for mine, and if other
people--but no matter for that! The third of April came, and the fire,
and the right wing of Grant's army. I remember I was glad then that I
had moved the office down to the house, for we were out of the way
there. Everybody had run away from the Department; and so, when the
powers that be took possession, my little sub-bureau was unmolested for
some days. I improved those days as well as I could,--burning carefully
what was to be burned, and hiding carefully what was to be hidden. One
thing that happened then belongs to this story. As I was at work on the
private bureau,--it was really a bureau, as it happened, one I had made
Aunt Eunice give up when I broke my leg,--I came, to my horror, on a
neat parcel of coast-survey maps of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. They
were not the same Maury stole when he left the National Observatory, but
they were like them. Now I was perfectly sure that on that fatal Sunday
of the flight I had sent Lafarge for these, that the President might use
them, if necessary, in his escape. When I found them, I hopped out and
called for Julia, and asked her if she did not remember his coming for
them. "Certainly," she said, "it was the first I knew of the danger.
Lafarge came, asked for the key of the office, told me all was up,
walked in, and in a moment was gone."

And here, on the file of April 3d, was Fafarge's line to me:

"I got the secret-service parcel myself, and have put it in the
President's own hands. I marked it, 'Gulf coast,' as you bade me."

What could Lafarge have given to the President? Not the soundings of
Hatteras Bar. Not the working-drawings of the first monitor. I h