tic "Fifth
Avenue" and the doubtful "Mercer Street." Many of the tents bore equally
significant inscription, from the "City Hall" (where some scion of an
alderman probably made his warlike abode), to the "Astor House" and "St.
Nicholas" (where perhaps some depreciated son of snobbery was known to
have his quarters), and the "Hotel de Coffee and Cakes," suggestive of
inmates from the less pretentious precincts of the city. Within the
tents, as Smith and Brown took the liberty of looking in, a variety of
spectacles were discovered. Straw seemed to be an almost universal
commodity--quite as indispensable there as in pigpens or railroad-cars;
and next to straw, perhaps battered trunks and very cheap pine tables
predominated. Greasy kettles and dishes could be discovered just under
the flap of the tent, in many instances; and here and there a tent would
be passed, emitting odors of rancid grease, stale tobacco and personal
foulness, not at all appetizing to visitors unfamiliar with the gutters
of Mackerelville or the hold of a ship in the horse-latitudes.

In some of the tents the men were asleep on the tables, in others on the
trunks, in still others on the straw. In a few Smith and Brown saw
soldiers drinking; in others, in positions suggestive of being very
drunk, had they found them elsewhere than in a well-regulated camp; in
still others playing cards for pennies, furtively behind the flaps of
the tent or openly in the vicinity of the door. They caught fragments of
broad oaths from a few, and snatches of obscene stories from a few
others; and taken altogether, the impression of the Two Hundredth being
in a high state of discipline or a very excellent sanitary condition,
was not strongly forced upon their minds. This impression was not
strengthened, when, being directed by one of the sentries to the
hospital-tent as a place where they might be likely at that moment to
find Lieutenant Woodruff,--they failed to discover him there, but did
not fail to discover one corporal keeping guard in that sanitary
domicil, so drunk that he was asleep and so drunkenly abusive when they
woke him that they were glad to permit him to fall back again into his
beastly slumber.

At length they found Lieutenant Woodruff, who had just returned from
escorting another party of friends to the cars, on their way back to
town. He seemed glad to see them, though not enthusiastic in his
demonstrations--invited them to the tent in which he messed wit