fusion and is driven
like a whirlwind down the street, dividing at the Market House. They are
going to board the Government transport--to die on the battlefields of
Kentucky and Missouri.

Mr. Hopper alights from the car with complacency. He stands for a while
on a corner, against the hot building, surveying the busy scene,
unnoticed. Mules! Was it not a prophecy,--that drove which sent him into
Mr. Carvel's store?

Presently a man with a gnawed yellow mustache and a shifty eye walks out
of one of the offices, and perceives our friend.

"Howdy, Mr. Hopper?" says he.

Eliphalet extends a hand to be squeezed and returned. "Got them
vouchers?" he asks. He is less careful of his English here.

"Wal, I jest reckon," is the answer: The fellow was interrupted by the
appearance of a smart young man in a smart uniform, who wore an air of
genteel importance. He could not have been more than two and twenty, and
his face and manners were those of a clerk. The tan of field service was
lacking on his cheek, and he was black under the eyes.

"Hullo, Ford," he said, jocularly.

"Howdy, Cap," retorted the other. "Wal, suh, that last lot was an extry,
fo' sure. As clean a lot as ever I seed. Not a lump on 'em. Gov'ment
ain't cheated much on them there at one-eighty a head, I reckon."

Mr. Ford said this with such an air of conviction and such a sober face
that the Captain smiled. And at the same time he glanced down nervously
at the new line of buttons on his chest.

"I guess I know a mule from a Newfoundland dog by this time," said he.

"Wal, I jest reckon," asserted Mr. Ford, with a loud laugh. "Cap'n
Wentworth, allow me to make you acquainted with Mr. Hopper. Mr. Hopper,
Cap'n Wentworth."

The Captain squeezed Mr. Hoppers hand with fervor. "You interested in
mules, Mr. Hopper?" asked the military man.

"I don't cal'late to be," said. Mr. Hopper. Let us hope that our worthy
has not been presented as being wholly without a sense of humor. He
grinned as he looked upon this lamb in the uniform of Mars, and added,
"I'm just naturally patriotic, I guess. Cap'n, 'll you have a drink?"

"And a segar," added Mr. Ford.

"Just one," says the Captain. "It's d--d tiresome lookin' at mules all
day in the sun."

Well for Mr. Davitt that his mission work does not extend to Bremen, that
the good man's charity keeps him at the improvised hospital down town.
Mr. Hopper has resigned the superintendency of his Sunday School, it is
true,