on t'other, and
betwixt and betweenst 'em a white man's got mighty little chance. And
then, right on top of the whole caboodle, here comes the panic in the
banks, and the epizooty 'mongst the cattle. I tell you, gener'l, it's
tough times, and it's in-about as much as an honest man can do to pay
hotel bills and have a ticket ready to show up when the conductor comes
along."

General Garwood smiled sympathetically, and Goolsby went on: "Here I've
been runnin' up and down the country tryin' to sell a book, and I ain't
sold a hunderd copies sence I started--no, sir, not a hunderd copies.
Maybe you'd like to look at it, gener'l," continued Goolsby, stiffening
up a little. "If I do say it myself, it's in-about the best book that a
man'll git a chance to thumb in many a long day."

"What book is it, Goolsby?" the general inquired.

Goolsby sprang up, waddled rapidly to where he had left his satchel, and
returned, bringing a large and substantial-looking volume.

"It's a book that speaks for itself any day in the week," he said,
running the pages rapidly between his fingers; "it's a history of our
own great conflict--'The Rise and Fall of the Rebellion,' by Schuyler
Paddleford. I don't know what the blamed publishers wanted to put in
'Rebellion' for. I told 'em, says I: 'Gentlemen, it'll be up-hill work
with this in the Sunny South. Call it "The Conflict,"' says I. But they
wouldn't listen, and now I have to work like a blind nigger splittin'
rails. But she's a daisy, gener'l, as shore as you're born. She jess
reads right straight along from cover to cover without a bobble. Why,
sir, I never know'd what war was till I meandered through the sample
pages of this book. And they've got your picture in here, gener'l, jest
as natural as life--all for five dollars in cloth, eight in liberry
style, and ten in morocker."

General Garwood glanced over the specimen pages with some degree of
interest, while Goolsby continued to talk.

"Now, betwixt you and me, gener'l," he went on confidentially, "I don't
nigh like the style of that book, particular where it rattles up our
side. I wa'n't in the war myself, but blame me if it don't rile me when
I hear outsiders a-cussin' them that was. I come mighty nigh not takin'
holt of it on that account; but 'twouldn't have done no good, not a bit.
If sech a book is got to be circulated around here, it better be
circulated by some good Southron--a man that's a kind of antidote to the
pizen, as i