f the few wits a
drunken campaign had left him, set him literally tripping on the light,
fantastic toe "toward home," as he blandly informed me, touching the
military cap which formed a striking contrast to the severe simplicity
of the rest of his decidedly undress uniform. When sane, the least
movement produced a roar of pain or a volley of oaths; but the
departure of reason seemed to have wrought an agreeable change, both in
the man and his manners; for, balancing himself on one leg, like a
meditative stork, he plunged into an animated discussion of the war,
the President, lager beer, and Enfield rifles, regardless of any
suggestions of mine as to the propriety of returning to bed, lest he be
court-martialed for desertion.

Anything more supremely ridiculous can hardly be imagined than this
figure, scantily draped in white, its one foot covered with a big blue
sock, a dingy cap set rakingly askew on its shaven head, and placid
satisfaction beaming in its broad red face, as it flourished a mug in
one hand, an old boot in the other, calling them canteen and knapsack,
while it skipped and fluttered in the most unearthly fashion. What to
do with the creature I didn't know; Dan was absent, and if I went to
find him, the perambulator might festoon himself out of the window, set
his toga on fire, or do some of his neighbors a mischief. The attendant
of the room was sleeping like a near relative of the celebrated Seven,
and nothing short of pins would rouse him; for he had been out that
day, and whiskey asserted its supremacy in balmy whiffs. Still
declaiming, in a fine flow of eloquence, the demented gentleman hopped
on, blind and deaf to my graspings and entreaties; and I was about to
slam the door in his face, and run for help, when a second and saner
phantom, "all in white," came to the rescue, in the likeness of a big
Prussian, who spoke no English, but divined the crisis, and put an end
to it, by bundling the lively monoped into his bed, like a baby, with
an authoritative command to "stay put," which received added weight
from being delivered in an odd conglomeration of French and German,
accompanied by warning wags of a head decorated with a yellow cotton
night cap, rendered most imposing by a tassel like a bell-pull. Rather
exhausted by his excursion, the member from Pennsylvania subsided; and,
after an irrepressible laugh together, my Prussian ally and myself were
returning to our places, when the echo of a sob cause