take to
bluff and poker in the prime of life." Here the poor chap made a move
toward tearing his hair, but thought better of it and only scratched a
pimple on his chin.

Arm in arm we walked slowly forward together, each busied with his own
thoughts, until, from a clump of trees by the road-side, there
unexpectedly emerged before us that ornament of our national service
known as Captain Bob Shorty, with his cap at a fierce cock, his hands
in his pockets, and a supernaturally knowing air clothing him as with a
garment.

"By all that's Federal!" said Captain Bob Shorty, starting at sight of
me, "if I didn't take you at first for that ere Confederacy of the name
of Munchausen, which has privately appointed to meet me here in single
combat."

"Why then, really, you know," observed the Conservative Kentucky chap,
suddenly coming forward and pleasantly rubbing his hands, "really it
would be a good plan for me to go forward and meet him with a view to
peace negotiations. Being a Confederacy, he is Kentucky's brother,"
warbled the Conservative chap, with soft enthusiasm, "and I might tell
him that you would pay all his debts, black his boots, run errands for
him, and send the President to tell him a little story, if he would
give up this conflict. Should he refuse, and even proceed to the
extremity of kicking me," said the Conservative Kentucky chap, with
awful sternness, "why, then, I should be in favor of letting the matter
proceed to the bitter end,--as it had already in my own case."

"I am not aweer," observed Captain Bob Shorty, "that you have any
business in the matter at all, my old Trojan; but there's the road open
to you."

It was beautiful, my boy,--touchingly beautiful, and withal unctuous,
to observe with what a benignant smile the peaceful Conservative
Kentucky Chap departed up the road. We saw him reach a turn in the
path, around which the sound of stately approaching footsteps was
already becoming audible. We saw him turn it; heard all the footsteps
cease; heard a confused murmur,--a sharp scratching as of heels upon
gravel; and Kentucky's favorite son was observed to be coming again to
his place, with a slight limp in his walk.

Right behind him came a remarkable being attired in fragments of gray
cloth and a prodigious thicket of whiskers, through the latter of which
his eyes glared yellowly, like the bottles in an apothecary's shop down
the street. As he approached nearer, he hastily put on a pair of