Said the Captain when this operation was completed, having watched it with curious eyes, "Well, my man, are you aware of the fact that that is _my_ paper?"
"Don't care if it is. What in thunder did you bring the damned Copperhead sheet to me for, if you didn't want it smashed? Ain't you ashamed of yourself having such a thing round? How'd you feel if you were picked up dead by a reb, with that stuff in your pocket? Say now!"
Coolidge laughed,--he was always ready to laugh: that was probably why the men liked him so well, and stood in awe of him not a bit. "Feel? horridly, of course. Bad enough, being dead, to yet speak, and tell 'em that paper didn't represent my politics: 'd that do?"
"What are you making such a devil of a row for, I'd like to know? it's too hot to get excited. 'Tain't likely you know anything about Willie Surrey."
"O ho! it is Mr. Will, then, is it? Know him,--don't I, though? Like a book. Known him ever since he was knee-height of a grasshopper. I'd like to have that fellow"--shaking his fist toward the floating paper--"within arm's reach. Wouldn't I pummel him some? O no, of course not,--not at all. Only, if he wants a sound skin, I'd advise him, as a friend, to be scarce when I'm round, because it'd very likely be damaged."
"You think it's all a Copperhead lie, then! I should have thought so, at first, only I know Surrey's capable of doing any Quixotic thing if he once gets his mind fixed on it."
"I know what I know," Jim answered, slowly folding and unfolding Sallie's letter, which he still held in his hand. "I know all about that young lady he's been marrying. She's young, and she's handsome--handsome as a picture--and rich, and as good as an angel; that's about what she is, if Sallie Howard and I know B from a bull's foot."
"Who is Sallie Howard?" queried the Captain.
"She? O,"--very red in the face,--"she's a friend of mine, and she's Miss Ercildoune's seamstress."
"Ercildoune? good name! Is she the _lady_ upon whom Surrey has been bestowing his--?"
"Yes, she is; and here's her photograph. Sallie begged it of her, and sent it to me, once after she had done a kind thing by both of us. Looks like a 'nigger wench,' don't she?"
The Captain seized the picture, and, having once fastened his eyes upon it, seemed incapable of removing them. "This? this her?" he cried. "Great Cæsar! I should think Surrey would have the fellow out at twenty paces in no time. Heavens, what a beauty!"