called on. I got another meal for the
confederate, and he seemed to be actually getting fat. The colonel of my
regiment came down to where we were, and said, "You fellows seem to be
doing pretty well," and then he had a long talk with the rebel prisoner,
invited him up to his tent to pass the night, apologized for the concert
he had been giving us, explained what it was for, told me I could go to
my company if I thought I could remember a bugle call in the future; the
captain shook hands with me and thanked me cordially, and we separated.
He was exchanged, the next day, and I never saw him for twenty-two
years, when I found him at the head of a manufacturing enterprise in his
loved Virginia, and he furnished me a more expensive meal than I did him
years before, but it didn't taste half as good as the bacon dinner in
Alabama under the guard-house tree.

CHAPTER XXVII.

A Short Story About a Pair of Boots, Showing the Monumental
Gall of their Owner.

When I enlisted in the cavalry I bought a pair of top boots, of the
Wellington pattern, stitched with silk up and down the legs, which were
of shiny morocco. They came clear above my knees, and from the pictures
I had seen of cavalry soldiers, it struck me those boots would be
a pass-port to any society in the army. The first few months of my
service, it seemed to me, the boots gave me more tone than any one
thing. I learned afterwards that all new recruits came to the regiment
with such boots, and that they were the laughing stock of all the old
veterans. I did not know that I was being guyed by the boys, and I
loved those boots above all things I had. To be sure, when we struck an
unusually muddy country, some idiot of an officer seemed to be inspired
to order us to dismount. The boys who had common army boots would
dismount anywhere, in mud or water, but it seemed to me cruel for
officers to order a dismount, when they knew I would have to step in the
mud half way up to my knees, with those morocco boots on. Several times
when ordered to dismount in the mud, I have ridden out of the road,
where it was not muddy, to dismount, but the boys would laugh so loud,
and the officers would swear so wickedly, that I got so I would dismount
wherever they told me, suppress my emotions, as I felt my beautiful,
shiny boots sink into the red clay, and when we got into camp I would
spend half the night cleaning my boots. The captain said if I would
spend half the time