n intrusted to me a carpet-
bag full of gold and silver, to pay off the garrison for the past
six months, with as much advance pay as the officers would consent
to take, so that he would not have to make the trip down for a long
time to come. I had to carry the money-bag and a revolver about
with me for twenty-five days or more. I have never consented to
handle Uncle Sam's money since that time.

AN "AFFAIR OF HONOR"

It was during that short visit to Charleston that I became engaged,
for the first and only time, in an "affair of honor." A young man
who had been in my class at West Point, but had resigned before
the class had graduated, came to me at the hotel, and asked me, as
his "friend," to deliver a note he held in his hand. I replied:
"Yes. If you will place yourself in my hands and do what I decide
is honorable and right, I will be your friend. Tell me about it."
My condition was accepted without reserve. My friend, whose home
was in a distant city, had been in Charleston some weeks, and had
spent all the money he had and all he could borrow. He was on the
eve of negotiating a further loan from a well-known banker when
the son of that banker, who had met my friend about town, told his
father the plain truth about my friend's habits and his probable
value as a debtor. The negotiation was ended. My friend had become
a stranger in a strange land, without the means to stay there any
longer or to go home. It was a desperate case--one which could
not be relived by anything less than the blood of the young "villain"
who had told his father that "infamous"--truth! I replied: "Yes,
that is a bad case; we will have to fix that up. How are you off
at home?" He said the "old man" had plenty of money, but had sent
him enough to come home once or twice before, and would not send
any more. Upon further inquiry, I found that my friend's hotel
bill and expenses home would amount to a little less than the sum
I had just drawn on my pay account up to date; so I handed him the
money, saying that he could return it when convenient, and his
"honor" was fully satisfied. I never afterward heard anything from
him about that money, and my tailor had to wait a little longer
for his pay; but I had done my duty, as I understood it, under the
code of honor. I saw that friend once afterward. He went into
the army in 1861, accidentally shot himself, and died miserably o