nt.

"Come! Colonel, marshal your forces a little more promptly. If you're
going at me _echelon_, sound y'r bugle; I'm ready."

"Don't worry," answered the Colonel, in his calmest nasal, "I'll
accommodate you with all the fight you want."

"Did it ever occur to you," began the Judge again, addressing the
crowd generally, as he moved back to the stove and lit another cigar,
"did it ever occur to you that it is a little singular a man should
get bald on the _top_ of his head first? Curious fact. So accustomed
to it we no longer wonder at it. Now see the Colonel there. Quite a
growth of hair on his clap-boarding, as it were, but devilish thin on
his roof."

Here the Colonel looked up and tried to say something, but the Judge
went on imperturbably.

"Now I take it that it's strictly providential that a man gets bald on
top of his head first, because if he _must_ get bald it is best to get
bald where it can be covered up."

"By jinks, that's a fact!" said the rest in high admiration of the
Judge's ratiocination. Steve was specially pleased, and drawing a
neck-yoke from a barrel standing near, pounded the floor vigorously.

"Talking about being bald," put in Foster, "reminds me of a scheme of
mine, which is to send no one out to fight Indians but bald men. Think
how powerless they'd--"

The talk now drifted off to Indians, politics, and religion, edged
round to the war when the grave Judge was telling Ridings and Robie
just how "Kilpatrick charged along the Granny White Turnpike," and on
a sheet of wrapping paper was showing where Major John Dilrigg fell.
"I was on his left about thirty yards, when I saw him throw up his
hand--"

Foster in a low voice was telling something to the Professor, and two
or three others, which made them whoop with uncontrollable merriment,
when the roaring voice of big Sam Walters was heard outside, and a
moment later he rolled into the room, filling it with his noise.
Lottridge, the watchmaker, and Erlberg, the German baker, came in with
him.

"_Hello_, hello, _hello_! All here, are yeh?"

"All here waiting for you--and the turnkey," said Foster.

"Well, here I am. Always on hand like a sore thumb in huskin' season.
What's goin' on here? A game, hey? Hello, Gordon, it's you, is it?
Colonel, I owe you several for last night. But what the devil yo' got
your cap on fur, Colonel? Aint it warm enough here for yeh?"

The desperate Colonel who had snatched up his cap when he heard
Walte