etween us.

O'Keefe wiped his heated face and instigated a commotion among the
floating ice in his glass before he chose to answer.

"I am assisting at the wake," said he, "of the only nation on earth
that ever did me a good turn. As one gentleman to another, I am
ratifying and celebrating the foreign policy of the late Jefferson
Davis, as fine a statesman as ever settled the financial question of
a country. Equal ratio--that was his platform--a barrel of money for
a barrel of flour--a pair of $20 bills for a pair of boots--a hatful
of currency for a new hat--say, ain't that simple compared with W.
J. B.'s little old oxidized plank?"

"What talk is this?" I asked. "Your financial digression is merely
a subterfuge. Why were you marching in the ranks of the Confederate
Veterans?"

"Because, my lad," answered O'Keefe, "the Confederate Government in
its might and power interposed to protect and defend Barnard O'Keefe
against immediate and dangerous assassination at the hands of a
blood-thirsty foreign country after the Unites States of America
had overruled his appeal for protection, and had instructed Private
Secretary Cortelyou to reduce his estimate of the Republican
majority for 1905 by one vote."

"Come, Barney," said I, "the Confederate States of America has been
out of existence nearly forty years. You do not look older yourself.
When was it that the deceased government exerted its foreign policy
in your behalf?"

"Four months ago," said O'Keefe, promptly. "The infamous foreign
power I alluded to is still staggering from the official blow dealt
it by Mr. Davis's contraband aggregation of states. That's why you
see me cake-walking with the ex-rebs to the illegitimate tune about
'simmon-seeds and cotton. I vote for the Great Father in Washington,
but I am not going back on Mars' Jeff. You say the Confederacy has
been dead forty years? Well, if it hadn't been for it, I'd have
been breathing to-day with soul so dead I couldn't have whispered
a single cuss-word about my native land. The O'Keefes are not
overburdened with ingratitude."

I must have looked bewildered. "The war was over," I said vacantly,
"in--"

O'Keefe laughed loudly, scattering my thoughts.

"Ask old Doc Millikin if the war is over!" he shouted, hugely
diverted. "Oh, no! Doc hasn't surrendered yet. And the Confederate
States! Well, I just told you they bucked officially and solidly and
nationally against a foreign government four months ago a