d nerve.

"Do you know," said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So
is clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto
brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, nothing quite explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man,
as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan [a
small mulatto girl who used to bring muffins into camp three times a
week,--at the peril of her life!] and Jemmy Blunt of Company K--you know
him--was rather rough on the girl, when Quite So, who had been reading
under a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked over to where the
boys were skylarking, and with the smile of a juvenile angel on his face
lifted Jemmy out of that and set him down gently in front of his own
tent. There Blunt sat speechless, staring at Quite So, who was back
again under the tree, pegging away at his little Latin grammar."

That Latin grammar! He always had it about him, reading it or turning
over its dog's-eared pages at odd intervals and in out-of-the-way
places. Half a dozen times a day he would draw it out from the bosom
of his blouse, which had taken the shape of the book just over the left
breast, look at it as if to assure himself it was all right, and then
put the thing back. At night the volume lay beneath his pillow. The
first thing in the morning, before he was well awake, his hand would go
groping instinctively under his knapsack in search of it.

A devastating curiosity seized upon us boys concerning that Latin
grammar, for we had discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted
to steal it one night, but concluded not to. "In the first place,"
reflected Strong, "I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I
have n't the moral courage. Quite So would placidly break every bone in
my body." And I believe Strong was not far out of the way.

Sometimes I was vexed with myself for allowing this tall, simple-hearted
country fellow to puzzle me so much. And yet, was he a simple-hearted
country fellow? City bred he certainly was not; but his manner, in spite
of his awkwardness, had an indescribable air of refinement. Now and
then, too, he dropped a word or a phrase that showed his familiarity
with unexpected lines of reading. "The other day," said Curtis, with the
slightest elevation of eyebrow, "he had the cheek to correct my Latin
for me." In short, Quite So was a daily problem to the members of Mess
6. Wheneve