f irony in his manner--"well, have you forgotten that an
oath of allegiance is required?"

"I have altered neither my convictions nor my sympathies," said the
other, tranquilly. "While my sympathies are with the South, as you do me
the honor to recollect, I have never doubted that the North was in the
right. I am a Southerner in fact and in feeling, but it is my habit in
matters of importance to act as I think, not as I feel."

The Governor was absently tapping his desk with a pencil; he did not
immediately reply. After a while he said: "I have heard that there are
all kinds of men in the world, so I suppose there are some like that,
and doubtless you think yourself one. I've known you a long time and--
pardon me--I don't think so."

"Then I am to understand that my application is denied?"

"Unless you can remove my belief that your Southern sympathies are in
some degree a disqualification, yes. I do not doubt your good faith, and
I know you to be abundantly fitted by intelligence and special training
for the duties of an officer. Your convictions, you say, favor the Union
cause, but I prefer a man with his heart in it. The heart is what men
fight with."

"Look here, Governor," said the younger man, with a smile that had more
light than warmth: "I have something up my sleeve--a qualification which
I had hoped it would not be necessary to mention. A great military
authority has given a simple recipe for being a good soldier: 'Try
always to get yourself killed.' It is with that purpose that I wish to
enter the service. I am not, perhaps, much of a patriot, but I wish to
be dead."

The Governor looked at him rather sharply, then a little coldly. "There
is a simpler and franker way," he said.

"In my family, sir," was the reply, "we do not do that--no Armisted has
ever done that."

A long silence ensued and neither man looked at the other. Presently the
Governor lifted his eyes from the pencil, which had resumed its tapping,
and said:

"Who is she?"

"My wife."

The Governor tossed the pencil into the desk, rose and walked two or
three times across the room. Then he turned to Armisted, who also had
risen, looked at him more coldly than before and said: "But the man--
would it not be better that he--could not the country spare him better
than it can spare you? Or are the Armisteds opposed to 'the unwritten
law'?"

The Armisteds, apparently, could feel an insult: the face of the younger
man flushed, then pale