in. I had saved my best shot for the last, and I said, "knowing
the mule was unsound, a vicious animal, and that my horse was sound and
desirable, and worth more than a dozen such mules, did you consider
that you was pursuing your calling as a minister when you gained my
confidence, and not only sawed the mule off on to me, bereaved me of a
fine horse, but took twenty dollars of my hard-earned bounty money as
boot in the trade? In doing that to an innocent and fresh recruit who
had confidence in you, did you not pave the way for me to get even with
you on a horse trade, and haven't I got even, and do you blame me for
doing it?" The chaplain was perspiring while I was asking the questions,
and all the officers were looking at him as though he had caught a
tartar, but he blushed, choked, and finally answered that perhaps he did
wrong in trading me that mule, and he asked to be forgiven.

Then I turned to the officers and said, "Gentlemen, I admit that I
traded the spotted circus-horse to the chaplain. I did it on purpose
to show him that there is a God in Israel. When I came to the regiment,
right fresh from the people, I needed salting. The boys all salted me
whenever they got a chance, and I took it like a little man. In turning
to the chaplain for comfort, I did not expect that he would salt me
worse than all of the boys combined, but when I found that he had gone
through me, and taken advantage of my guileless innocence, and laughed
at my woe when I found the confounded mule was not all his fancy had
painted it, and that it laid awake nights to devise ways to kick my head
on, I took a blooded oath that before the cruel war was over I would
salt that chaplain on a horse trade, until he would own up the corn. I
leave it to you, gentlemen, if I have done it or not. When that spotted
horse fell to me, by the fortunes of war, I was not long in learning
that it was the relic of a circus. I rode the horse one day last week at
a funeral, and it acted in such a manner as to almost wake up the late
lamented. I was made the laughing stock of the brigade, and of the
town. It was government property, and I could not kill the horse, and I
thought the time had arrived for me to get even with my old friend. He
was mashed on my spotted horse, and bantered me for a trade. Finally we
traded, and I got ten dollars to boot. The result has been all that I
could desire. I have had the satisfaction of demonstrating to this
truly good man that