their own way. It's a d----d
tight pull whether you are to be kept as a prisoner of war, or shoved
under ground this morning without tuck of drum. That for your private
ear."

"I was born in old Carolina myself," replied Horse Shoe, aside to the
speaker; "and I don't believe there is many men to be found in it who
would stand by and see the rules and regulations of honorable war
blackened and trod down into the dust by any cowardly trick of murder.
If it comes to that, many as there are against two, our lives will not
go at a cheap price."

"Whisht!" returned the other, "with my allowance, for one, it shan't be.
A prisoner's a prisoner, I say; and damnation to the man that would make
him out worse."

"They say you are a merry devil, old Horse Shoe," exclaimed he who was
called Bow Legs, who now stepped up and slapped the sergeant on the
back. "So take a swig, man; fair play is a jewel!--that's my doctrine.
Fight when you fight, and drink when you drink--and that's the sign to
know a man by."

"There is some good things," said the sergeant, "in this world that's
good, and some that's bad. But I have always found that good and bad is
so mixed up and jumbled together, that you don't often get much of one
without a little of the other. A sodger's a sodger, no matter what side
he is on; and they are the naturalest people in the world for
fellow-feeling. One day a man is up, and then the laugh's on his side;
next day he is down, and then the laugh's against him. So, as a sodger
has more of these ups and downs than other folks, there's the reason his
heart is tenderer towards a comrade than other people's. Here's your
health, sir. This is a wicked world, and twisted, in a measure, upside
down; and it is well known that evil communications corrupts good
manners; but sodgers were made to set the world right again, on its
legs, and to presarve good breeding and Christian charity. So there's a
sarmon for you, you tinkers!"

"Well done, mister preacher!" vociferated a prominent reveller. "If you
will desert and enlist with us you shall be the chaplain of the troop.
We want a good swearing, drinking, and tearing blade who can hold a
discourse over his liquor, and fence with the devil at long words.
You're the very man for it! Huzza for the blacksmith!"

"Huzza for the blacksmith!" shouted several others in the apartment.

Butler, during this scene, had stretched himself out at full length upon
a bench, to gain some rest in