als--materials that the hand of an artist would make
luscious--egad, sir; _luscious_--utterly ruined in the handling. It's
too bad, Styles, too bad!"

"It is, indeed," put in Wyatt, falling into the colonel's vein, "too
bad! And as for steaks, why, sir, there is not a steak in this whole
country. They stew them, colonel, actually _stew beefsteaks_! Listen to
the receipt a 'notable housewife' gave me: 'Put a juicy steak, cut two
inches thick, in a saucepan; cover it well with water; put in a large
lump of lard and two sliced onions. Let it simmer till the water dries;
add a small lump of butter and a dash of pepper--and it's done!' Think
of that, sir, for a _bonne bouche_!"

"Good God!" ejaculated the colonel, with beads on his brow. "I have
seen those things, but I never knew how they were done! I shall dream
of this, egad! for weeks."

"Fact, sir," Wyatt added, "and I've a theory that no nation deserves
its liberties that stews its steaks. Can't gain them, sir! How can men
legislate--how can men fight with a pound of stewed abomination holding
them like lead? 'Bold and erect the Caledonian stood,' but how long do
you think he would have been 'bold,' if they had stewed his 'rare beef'
for him? No, sir! mark my words: the nation that stews its beefsteaks
contracts its boundaries! As for an omelette----"

"Say no more, Will!" broke in the colonel solemnly. "After the war,
come to my club and we'll dine--egad, sir! _for a week!_"

That invincible pluck of the southron, which carried him through
starvation and the sweltering march of August, through hailing shot and
shell, and freezing mud of midwinter camps--was unconquered even after
the surrender. Equally invincible was that twin humor, which laughed
amid all these and bore up, even in defeat. Some of the keenest hits of
all the war--tinctured though they be with natural bitterness--are
recalled from those days, when the beaten, but defiant, Rebel was
passing under the victor's yoke.

Surprising, indeed, to its administrators must have been the result of
"the oath," forced upon one green cavalryman, before he could return to
family and farm. Swallowing the obnoxious allegiance, he turned to the
Federal officer and quietly asked:

"Wail, an' now I reck'n I'm loyil, ain't I?"

"Oh, yes! You're all right," carelessly replied the captor.

"An' ef I'm loyil, I'm same as you 'uns?" persisted the lately sworn.
"We're all good Union alike, eh?"

"Oh, yes," the office