adjutant and
the colonel, so I took a pen and filled out the blank. My idea was to
put all the figures in the wrong column, which I did, and send it to
the brigade headquarters. The next morning I went down town with the
quartermaster, and got a suit of clothes to fit me, and on the way back
to camp I passed brigade headquarters, when I saw our adjutant looking
quite dejected. He called to me and said he had been summoned to brigade
headquarters to explain some inaccuracies in the monthly report sent in
the night before, and he wanted me to stay and see what was the trouble,
but I acted as though if there was a mistake, it was an error of the
head rather than of the feet. Pretty soon the old brigade adjutant, who
was a strict diciplinarian, and a man who never heard of a joke, came
in from the general's tent, with his brow corrugated. They had evidently
been brooding over the report.

"I beg your pardon, adjutant," said he, with a preoccupied look, "but in
your report I observe that your regiment contains forty-three enlisted
men, and nine hundred and twenty-six company cooks. This seems to me
improbable, and the general cannot seem to understand it."

The adjutant turned red in the face, and was about to stammer out
something, when the adjutant general continued:

"Again, we observe that your quartermaster has on hand nine hundred
bales of condition powders, which is placed in your report as rations
for the men, that you only have eleven horses in your regiment fit
for duty, that you have the same number of men, while the commissioned
officers foot up at nine hundred and twenty-six. Of your sick men
there seems to be plenty, some eight hundred, which would indicate an
epidemic, of which these headquarters had not been informed previously.
In the column headed "officers detailed on other duty" I find four
"six-mule teams," and one "spike team of five mules." In the column
"officers absent without leave" I find the entry "all gone off on a
drunk." This, sir, is the most incongruous report that has ever been
received at these head-quarters, from a reputably sober officer. Can
this affair be satisfactorily explained, at once, or would you prefer to
explain it to a court-martial?"

"Captain," said the adjutant in distress, and perspiring freely, "my
clerk has made a mistake, and placed a piece of waste paper that has
been scribbled on, in the envelope, instead of the regular report. Let
me take it, and I will send the p