owly, interrupted by
frequent whiffs at a well-colored meerschaum, "that the Colonel and
Lieutenant-Colonel will have difficulty to save themselves."

"Save themselves!" echoed several, from different parts of the tent,
their faces hardly visible through the increasing smoke. "Why, what's in
the wind now?"

"A good deal more than a great many of you think," continued the
Adjutant. "I think I see the dawning of considerable difficulty. The
Colonel, you recollect, was compelled to correct our Division-General in
some of his commands, to prevent confusion; and the General, although
clearly in the wrong, submitted with a bad grace; and then at the last
review you all remember how a whiffet chanced to yelp at the heels of
the Staff horses, and how the General--it was after three, you
recollect, G--d d----d the puppy and its ancestry, particularly its
mother, until his Staff tittered behind him, and the Regiments of his
command, officers and men, particularly ours, fairly roared. And then,
too, when General Burnside saluted the colors, and requested Pigey to
ride along, how he started off with his Staff, leaving us all at a
'Present Arms;' and how the quick eye of Old Joe saw the blunder; and
how he called the General's attention to it, without effect, until
'Burney' sharply yelled out, 'General, you had better bring your men to
a shoulder, sir;' and then, how the General, amid increased tittering
and laughter, rode back, and with a face like scarlet squeaked
out--'Division! Shoulder arms!' Now I have heard that the General blames
the Field Officers of our Regiment with a good deal of that laughter;
and that and this Sutler matter will make him provide a pretext for
another Court-martial at an early day."

"Double, double, toil and trouble,"

said the poetical Lieutenant. "Why, the Adjutant talks as if he could
see the witches over the pot; certainly--

'No lateness of life gives him mystical lore.'"

"No, but--

'Coming events cast their shadows before.'"

continued the Adjutant, finishing the couplet. "I do not know that any
gift of prophecy is given unto me, but I will venture to predict that
the pretext will be that very order,--outrageous and unreasonable as it
is,--that our Brigadier not only flatly and positively refused to obey
before he left, but told his command that it was unlawful and
unreasonable, and should not be obeyed."

"What! that dress-coat order," cried the Western