o lose a breakfast like that!" and
Corporal Kennedy shook his fist at the group of buglers calling the
regiment to parade.

In ten minutes the Fifty-third had formed in column of companies. "Old
Jimmy," their Colonel, had galloped down at them and once along their
front; then the command, forming fours from the right front, moved off
at a trot through the mud in long procession.

"Didn't I know it?" said Kennedy; "it's escortin' the doughboys'
prisoners, that's all we're good for this outrageous day. Oh, wirra,
wirrasthru! Police duty! and this calls itself a cavalry rigiment.
Mounted Police duty,--escortin' doughboys' prisoners! Faix, I might as
well be wid Her Majesty's dhragoons, thramplin' down the flesh and
blood of me in poor ould Oireland. Begor, Harry, me bhy, it's a mane
job to be setting you at, and this the first day ye're mounted to save
the Union!"

"Stop coddin' the boy, Corporal," said Bader, angrily. "You can't
think how an American boy feels about this war."

"An Amerikin!--an Amerikin, is it? Let me insthruct ye thin, Misther
Bader, that I'm as good an Amerikin as the next man. Och, be jabers,
me that's been in the color you see ever since the Prisident first
called for men! It was for a three months' dance he axed us first. Me,
that's re-enlishted twice, don't know the feelin's of an Amerikin!
What am I here for? Not poverty! sure I'd enough of that before ever I
seen Ameriky! What am I wallopin' through the mud for this mornin'?"

"It's your trade, Kennedy," said Bader, with disgust.

"Be damned to you, man!" said the corporal, sternly. "When I touched
fut in New York, didn't I swear that I'd never dhraw swoord more,
barrin' it was agin the ould red tyrant and oprissor of me counthry?
Wasn't I glad to be dhrivin' me own hack next year in Philamedink like
a gintleman? Oh, the paice and the indipindence of it! But what cud I
do when the counthry that tuk me and was good to me wanted an ould
dhragoon? An Amerikin, ye say! Faith, the heart of me is Amerikin, if
I'm a bog throtter by the tongue. Mind that now, me bould man!"

Harry heard without heeding as the horses spattered on. Still wavered
in his ears the sounds of the dawn; still he saw the ghostlike forms
of Americans in gray tumbling back from their rush against the sacred
flag that had drooped so sadly over the smoke; and still, far away
beyond all this puddled and cumbered ground the dreamy boy saw
millions of white American faces, all h