he's bin
put to all that trouble jest to save the reputation of another man, and
the secrets of a few high and mighty ones, it's almost enough to make
his liquor go agin him." He stopped theatrically, seemed to choke
emotionally over his brandy squash, but with a pause of dramatic
determination finally dashed it down. "No, gentlemen," he continued
gloomily, "I don't say what I'm back in Washington FOR--I don't say what
I've been sayin' to myself when I've bin picking the weevils outer my
biscuits in Libby Prison--but ef you don't see some pretty big men in
the War Department obliged to climb down in the next few days, my name
ain't Jim Hooker, of Hooker, Meacham & Co., Army Beef Contractors, and
the man who saved the fight at Gray Oaks!"

The smile of satisfaction that went around his audience--an audience
quick to seize the weakness of any performance--might have startled
a vanity less oblivious than Hooker's; but it only aroused Brant's
indignation and pity, and made his position still more intolerable. But
Hooker, scornfully expectorating a thin stream of tobacco juice against
the spittoon, remained for an instant gloomily silent.

"Tell us about the fight again," said a smiling auditor.

Hooker looked around the room with a certain dark suspiciousness, and
then, in an affected lower voice, which his theatrical experience made
perfectly audible, went on:--

"It ain't much to speak of, and if it wasn't for the principle of the
thing, I wouldn't be talking. A man who's seen Injin fightin' don't go
much on this here West Point fightin' by rule-of-three--but that ain't
here or there! Well, I'd bin out a-scoutin'--just to help the boys
along, and I was sittin' in my wagon about daybreak, when along comes a
brigadier-general, and he looks into the wagon flap. I oughter to tell
you first, gentlemen, that every minit he was expecting an attack--but
he didn't let on a hint of it to me. 'How are you, Jim?' said he. 'How
are you, general?' said I. 'Would you mind lendin' me your coat and
hat?' says he. 'I've got a little game here with our pickets, and I
don't want to be recognized.' 'Anything to oblige, general,' said I, and
with that I strips off my coat and hat, and he peels and puts them on.
'Nearly the same figure, Jim,' he says, lookin' at me, 'suppose you try
on my things and see.' With that he hands me his coat--full uniform,
by G-d!--with the little gold cords and laces and the epaulettes with a
star, and I puts it