Of course you know that I must refer to our gallant
Colonel and the other leading officers at the head of the regiment; and
of course you are not so green as not to know that the big house beyond
the railroad track, there, is a tavern. Come along and let us see what
Colonel Crawford and the rest of them happen to be doing; and by the
time that is over we shall have our 'evening parade,' which you must
certainly see before you go home."

Escorted by the Lieutenant, the two citizens took their way to the "big
house"--a hotel standing on the north side of the railroad track and
very near it--a wooden building of two stories, with a piazza in front
and at the east end, and flanked by a row of horse-sheds indicating that
there was some dependence made upon the patronage of fast drivers
stopping there on race days or when trotting was peculiarly good on the
pike or the plank. Before the house paced two sentries, with muskets at
the shoulder, though what they were guarding was not so clear, as every
one passed who wished to do so, whether in uniform or citizen's dress.
Behind the corner of the piazza, eastward, an officer was leaning back
in his chair against the clap-boards, with his hat over his eyes and
apparently asleep; and a few feet from him a sergeant, distinguishable
by three dingy stripes on his arm that should have been laid upon his
back, was toying, not too decently, with a woman whose looks and manners
both proclaimed her one of the "necessary evils" of a modern community.

"Do they allow such actions as that--right here in public, and in the
very presence of the officers?" asked Smith, whose education had
possibly been a little neglected in some other particulars, as Brown's
had been in the details of the military profession.

"Guess so!" was the significant reply of Woodruff. "Come up stairs!" and
the party passed on. As they did so, they looked through a door to the
left, and saw a bar of unplaned boards extending the whole length of a
spacious room, with half a dozen attendants behind it and as many beer
kegs and whiskey decanters pouring out their contents. Mingled with here
and there a civilian, the whole front of the bar was full of soldiers,
all apparently drinking, and drinking again, and drinking yet again,
nibbling cheese, crackers and smoked-beef meanwhile, apparently to keep
up the necessary thirst. "Fire and fall back!" seemed to be a military
axiom not always observed by the rank and file of the