Jack. And what was wrong for us at home isn't going to be right
for us here. I, for one, believe we can go through this war without doing
any thing that will make our parents ashamed of us when we return."

"My eye!" jeered his companion; "and do you fancy a little swallow of
brandy is going to make my folks ashamed of me?"

"It isn't the single swallow I object to, Jack; it's the habit of
drinking. That's a foolish thing, to say the least, for young fellows,
like you and me, to get into; and we all know what it leads to. Who wants
to become a tobacco-spitting, rum-drinking, filthy old man?"

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Jack; rather feebly, however, for he could not help
feeling that Frank was as much in the right as he was in the wrong. "You
look a long ways ahead, it seems to me. I haven't thought of being an old
man yet."

"If we live, we shall be men, and old men, too, some day," said Frank,
without minding his sneers. "And you know we are laying the foundations
of our future characters now."

"That's what your mother, or your Sunday school teacher, has been saying
to you."

"No matter who has said it. I know it's true, and I hope I never shall
forget it. I mean to become a true, honest man if I live; and now, I
believe, is the time to begin."

"O, no doubt you'll be great things," grinned Jack.

The tone in which he said this was highly offensive; and Frank was
provoked to retort,--

"You don't seem even to have thought what you are going to be. You try
first one thing, then another, and stick to nothing. That's what your
father said this morning, with tears in his eyes."

Jack turned red as fire, either with anger or shame, or both, and seemed
meditating a passionate reply, when some of his companions, who had been
eating their rations outside, entered the tent.

"Come in, boys," cried Jack, "and hear Frank preach. You didn't know we
had a chaplain in our company--did ye? That's the parson, there, with the
girl's hair. He can reel you off sermons like any thing. Fire away,
Frank, and show the boys."

"Yes, steam up, parson," said Joe Harris, "and give us a specimen."

"Play away, seven," cried Ned Ellis, as if Frank had been a fire-engine
of that number.

These, together with other facetious remarks, made Frank so ashamed and
confused that he could not say a word. For experience had not yet taught
him that even the most reckless and depraved, however they may laugh at
honest seriousness in a companion,