er denizen of the sooty flue
could be Captain de Banyan?

His fellow-prisoner had been taken into the house by his custodian; and,
while the guard was looking the other way, perhaps he had suddenly popped
up the chimney, leaving the rebel soldier in charge of him to believe
that he was in league with the powers of darkness, and had been spirited
away by some diabolical imp.

In the range of improbable theories which the fertile mind of Somers
suggested to account for the phenomenon of the chimney, this seemed more
reasonable than any of the others. The personage below him very
considerately dropped down a step or two, to enable our theorist to
discuss the question to his own satisfaction; albeit it did not take him
a tithe of the time to do his thinking which it has taken his biographer
to record it.

"Captain?" said he in a gentle whisper, as insinuating as the breath of a
summer evening to a love-sick girl.

"I ain't a captain; I'm nothing but a private!" growled the other, who
seemed to be in very ill-humor.

Nothing but a private! It was not the captain then, after all. He had
hoped, and almost believed, it was. He had told his friend all about his
experience in a chimney; and it seemed to him quite probable that the
valiant hero of Magenta and Solferino had remembered the affair, and
attempted to try his own luck in a similar manner. It was not the voice
of the captain, nor were there any of his peculiarities of tone or
manner. If the other character had only said Balaclava, Alma, or
Palestro, it would have been entirely satisfactory in any tone or in any
manner.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Somers in the same low voice, with
commendable desire to obtain further knowledge of the dark subject
beneath him.

"I don't want nothin' of you; so yer kin let me alone. If yer don't let
me alone, I'll be dog derned if I don't ketch hold of yer legs, and pull
yer down chimley."

"Hush!" said Somers in warning tones. "They will hear you, if you speak
so loud."

The man was a rebel, or at least a Southerner; and it passed our hero's
comprehension to determine what he was doing in such a place.

"Hush yerself!" snarled the disconcerted rebel. "What yer want o' me? I
ain't done nothin' to you."

"I don't want anything of you; but, if you don't keep still, I'll drop a
stone on your head," replied Somers, irritated by the fellow's stupidity.

"Will yer?"

"Not if you keep still. Don't you see we are in the