I can't eat it," said Rosenbaum with a sigh. "It ain't kosher."

"What the devil's that?" asked Shorty.

"It's my religion. I can't explain. Send for the Officer of the Guard to
take me to Headquarters," answered Rosenbaum, sipping his coffee.

CHAPTER II. ROSENBAUM, THE SPY

THE JEW TELLS THE THRILLING STORY OF HIS ADVENTURE.

THE Officer of the Guard was a long time in coming, and Mr. Rosenbaum
grew quite chatty and communicative, as they sat around the bright fire
of cedar logs and smoked.

"Yes," he said, "I have been in the secret service ever since the
beginning of the war--in fact, before the war, for I began getting news
for Frank Blair in the Winter before the war. They say Jews have
no patriotism. That's a lie. Why should they have no patriotism for
countries where they were treated like dogs? In Germany, where I was
born, they treated us worse than dogs. They made us live in a little,
nasty, pig-pen of an alley; we had to go in at sundown, unt stay there;
we had to wear a different cloze from other folks, unt we didn't dare to
say our souls were our own to any dirty loafer that insulted us.

"Here we are treated like men, unt why shouldn't we help to keep the
country from breaking up? Jews ought to do more than anybody else, unt
I made up my mind from the very first that I was going to do all that
I could. The Generals have told me that I could do much better for the
country in the secret service than as a soldier; they could get plenty
of soldiers unt but few spies."{25}

"Now you're shoutin'," said Shorty. "They kin git me to soldier as long
as the war lasts, for the askin', but I wouldn't be a spy 10 minutes for
a corn-basket full o' greenbacks. I have too much regard for my neck. I
need it in my business."

"You a spy," said Si derisively. "You couldn't spy for sour apples. Them
big feet o' your'n 'd give you dead away to anybody that'd ever seen you
before."

"Spyin' isn't the business that any straightfor'rd man,"--the Deacon
began to say in tones of cold disapproval, and then he bethought him
of courtesy to the stranger, and changed hastily--"that I'd like to do.
It's entirely too resky."

"O, it's jest as honorable as anything else. Pap," said Si, divining
his father's thought. "All's fair in love and war. We couldn't git along
without spies. They're as necessary as muskets and cannon."

"Indeed they are," said Mr. Rosenbaum earnestly; "you wouldn't know what
to do with your muskets