medical inspecting to know that I had been
unjust. Some of the surgeons had been on duty, and the men were not so
much neglected as I had feared. As for the Ladies, I do not know how
many there were of them, but they were of good social position--quite as
good as the average of those whose main object in life is to look as
much better than their neighbors as circumstances will admit. There was
on board one of those folks for whose existence Christianity is
responsible, and which sensible Hindoos reduce to their original
elements, viz.: a widow who gets a living by being pious, and is
respectable through sheer force of cheap finery; one who estimates
herself by her surroundings, and whose every word and look and motion is
an apology for her existence. She was a Dix, or paid nurse. The ladies
snubbed her; we had no room for her hoops; and she spent her time in odd
corners, taking care of them and her hair, and turning up her eyes, like
a duck in a thunder-storm, under the impression that it looked
devotional. If I had killed all the folks I have felt like killing, she
would have gone from that boat to her final rest.

One night about eleven o'clock a strange surgeon, who had just come
aboard with twenty wounded, came to the kitchen door, and handed in a
requisition for tea and custard and chicken for his men. The man told
him he could have nothing but cracker-broth or coffee. He was very
indignant, and proceeded to get up a scene; but the man said, firmly:

"Can't help it, Surgeon! That's the orders!"

"Orders! Whose orders?"

I got down from my porch on the stairs, came forward and said:

"It is my orders, sir, and I am sorry, but this is really all we can do
for you. If your men have tin cups, each one can have a cup of warm
soup--it will not be very hot--or a cup of warm coffee. Those who get
soup will get no coffee, and those who get coffee can have no soup. You
can get tin cups from the commissary, and should have them ready, so
that the food will not cool."

While I made this statement he stood regarding me with ineffable
disdain, and when I was through inquired:

"Who are you?"

"I am the cook!"

"The cook!" he repeated, contemptuously. "I will report your insolence
when we reach Washington!"

"That may be your duty; but I will send up the coffee and soup, and do
you get the tin cups."

He stamped off in dudgeon, and others who heard him were highly
indignant; but I was greatly pleased to find a surge