it some time before we have. They are
pretty well able to take care of themselves, I reckon."

"They are good men, some of them, I don't deny," the first speaker
said; "but they might as well give up the game. In the spring we shall
have an army big enough to eat them up."

"So I have heard two or three times before. Scott was going to eat them
up, McClellan was going to eat them up, then Pope was going to make an
end of 'em altogether. Now McClellan is having a try again, but somehow
or other the eating up hasn't come off yet. It looks to me rather the
other way."

There was an angry growl from two or three of those sitting round, while
others uttered a cordial "That's so."

"It seems to me, by the way you put it, that you don't wish to see this
business come to an end."

"That's where you are wrong now. I do wish to see it come to an end. I
don't want to see tens of thousands of men losing their lives because
one portion of these States wants to ride rough-shod over the other. The
sooner the North looks this affair squarely in the face and sees that it
has taken up a bigger job than it can carry through, and agrees to let
those who wish to leave it go if they like, the better for all parties.
That's what I think about it."

"I don't call that Union talk," the other said angrily.

"Union or not Union, I mean to talk it, and I want to know who is going
to prevent me?"

The two men rose simultaneously from their chairs, and in a second the
cracks of two revolvers sounded. As if they had only been waiting for
the signal, a score of other men leaped up and sprang at each other.
They had, as the altercation grew hotter, joined in with exclamations of
anger or approval, and Vincent saw that although the Unionists were the
majority, the party of sympathizers with the South was a strong one.
Having neither arms nor inclination to join in a broil of this kind he
made his escape into the street the instant hostilities began, and
hurried away from the sound of shouts, oaths, the sharp cracks of
pistols, and the breaking of glass. Ten minutes later he returned. The
hotel was shut up, but an angry mob were assembled round the door
shouting, "Down with the rebels! down with the Secessionists!" and were
keeping up a loud knocking at the door. Presently a window upstairs
opened, and the proprietor put out his head.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I can assure you that the persons who were the
cause of this disturbance all left the