ant he departed, thereby gratifying him, securing one rousing
laugh in the doziest hour of the night, and no one was the worse for
the transaction but the pigs. Whether they were "cut off untimely in
their sins," or not, I carefully abstained from inquiring.

It was a strange life--asleep half the day, exploring Washington the
other half, and all night hovering, like a massive cherubim, in a red
rigolette, over the slumbering sons of man. I liked it, and found many
things to amuse, instruct, and interest me. The snores alone were quite
a study, varying from the mild sniff to the stentorian snort, which
startled the echoes and hoisted the performer erect to accuse his
neighbor of the deed, magnanimously forgive him, and wrapping the
drapery of his couch about him, lie down to vocal slumber. After
listening for a week to this band of wind instruments, I indulged in
the belief that I could recognize each by the snore alone, and was
tempted to join the chorus by breaking out with John Brown's favorite
hymn:

"Blow ye the trumpet, blow!"

I would have given much to have possessed the art of sketching, for
many of the faces became wonderfully interesting when unconscious. Some
grew stern and grim, the men evidently dreaming of war, as they gave
orders, groaned over their wounds, or damned the rebels vigorously;
some grew sad and infinitely pathetic, as if the pain borne silently
all day, revenged itself by now betraying what the man's pride had
concealed so well. Often the roughest grew young and pleasant when
sleep smoothed the hard lines away, letting the real nature assert
itself; many almost seemed to speak, and I learned to know these men
better by night than through any intercourse by day. Sometimes they
disappointed me, for faces that looked merry and good in the light,
grew bad and sly when the shadows came; and though they made no
confidences in words, I read their lives, leaving them to wonder at the
change of manner this midnight magic wrought in their nurse. A few
talked busily; one drummer boy sang sweetly, though no persuasions
could win a note from him by day; and several depended on being told
what they had talked of in the morning. Even my constitutionals in the
chilly halls, possessed a certain charm, for the house was never still.
Sentinels tramped round it all night long, their muskets glittering in
the wintry moonlight as they walked, or stood before the doors,
straight and silent, as figures of stone,