se to pay' of the Confederate States of America has sunk terribly
low, boys."

He held up a Confederate bill and regarded it with disgust.

"It would take a wheelbarrow full of those to buy a decent suit of
clothes," he said. "Do you know the luck I had yesterday when I tried to
improve my toilet?"

All showed interest.

"More than six months' pay was due me," said Talbot, "and thinking I'd
buy something to wear, I went around to old Seymour, the paymaster, for
an installment. 'See here, Seymour,' I said, 'can't you let me have a
month's pay. It's been so long since I have had any money that I've
forgotten how it looks. I want to refresh my memory.'

"You ought to have seen the look old Seymour put on. You'd have thought
I'd asked him for the moon. 'Talbot' he said, 'you're the cheekiest
youngster I've met in a long time.'

"'But the army owes me six months' pay,' I said. 'What's that got to do
with it?' he asked. 'I'd like to know what use a soldier has for money?'
Then he looked me up and down as if it wouldn't work a footrule hard to
measure me. But I begged like a good fellow--said I wanted to buy some
new clothes, and I'd be satisfied if he'd let me have only a month's
pay. At last he gave me the month's pay--five hundred dollars--in nice
new Confederate bills, and I went to a sutler to buy the best he had in
the way of raiment.

"I particularly wanted a nice new shirt and found one just to suit me.
'The price?' I said to the sutler. 'Eight hundred dollars,' he answered,
as if he didn't care whether I took it or not. That settled me so far as
the shirt question was concerned--I'd have to wait for that until I was
richer; but I looked through his stock and at last I bought a
handkerchief for two hundred dollars, two paper collars for one hundred
dollars each, and I've got this hundred dollars left. Oh, I'm a
bargainer!"

And he waved the Confederate bill aloft in triumph.

"I'd give this hundred dollars for a good cigar," he added, "but there
isn't one in the army."

One of the men sang:

"I am busted, mother, busted.
Gone the last unhappy check;
And the infernal sutler's prices
Make every pocket-book a wreck."

Prescott sat reading a newspaper. It was the issue of the _Richmond
Whig_ of April 30, 1864, and his eyes were on these paragraphs:

"That the great struggle is about to take place for the possession of
Richmond is conceded on all sides. The enemy is marshaling his cohor