e car, locked the doors, mashed
his hat down over his eyes, and frantically tearing open his
dilapidated overcoat, displayed _the star of a major-general_!

In an instant, the newly-fledged colonel lost all his knowing
braggadocio, and cowered before the glorious old veteran, like a cowed
cur (female of a bull-dog).

"Wr-r-r-etch!" exclaimed the hoary commander, in tones of thunder,
relieved with the vivid lightning of a hiccup, "Do you know _me_!"

The abashed young boaster could only bow his head in shame, and took
the first opportunity to dash himself from the vehicle wherein he had
been taught such a lesson. And this should teach us all, my boy, that
bad clothes are not always a sure sign of the wearer being only a
reporter for the _Tribune_; nor do the ordinary symptoms of
intoxication always indicate that the possessor lacks high rank in our
national army.

Some hours later, on this same car, there transpired a somewhat
different scene, but one equally calculated to prove that there is
indeed a North. Twenty-three wealthy secessionists were in the swift
vehicle, the only other passenger being a handsome lad of about
sixteen, in the uniform of a brigadier. Rendered confident by their
numbers, the enemies of our beneficent form of government entered into
a venomous discussion of the siege of Vicksburg, asserting that the
Yazoo Expedition had not yet captured forty-two steamboats of
Confederacies, and that the announcement of the capture of the
Mississippi River was premature.

The young soldier of the Republic went on with some candy he was
eating, an apparently indifferent spectator of this symposium of
treason; but the close spectator could not have failed to observe that
his whole form was invisibly convulsed with a patriotic indignation.
Presently, however, when one of the more hideous conspirators
heartlessly remarked that we had not heard much of our army in Virginia
lately, endurance ceased to be a virtue, and the young hero could no
longer restrain himself.

In a moment his whole aspect changed; his eyes burst into a devouring
blaze, and his cheeks were in flames before aught could be done to
check the conflagration. Animated by the strength of a giant, in a
cause which he believed to be a noble one, he shot the traitors one by
one with his revolver, and buried them in an obscure swamp near the
track; he paid the driver and conductor their wages, and induced them
to enlist for three years; then, afte