o seven hundred men, when there
are only three hundred entitled to receive it? And I wonder what becomes
of all the extra rations that are drawn for them every day? Somebody
must be making something out of it--eh? I wonder if there are any more
regiments in the same condition?"

"Probably!" said Brown. Whereupon the two citizens fell into a very deep
and silent train of thought, leaving us no additional speech to record.

Other people than Smith, at about that time, felt like propounding the
same queries as to the disposition of extra pay and rations. Some of
those queries, which _have_ been propounded, have not yet been answered.
When they are, if that happy period ever arrives, we may know something
more of the channels and sluices through which the wealth of the richest
nation on the globe has ebbed away, leaving such inconsiderable results
to show for the expenditure.

And yet Colonel Egbert Crawford, visiting the city two hours afterwards,
and dropping in at two or three favorite resorts of men who talked
horse, war and politics, on his way to the house of his cousin,--bore
himself bravely under his weight of uniform, and more than once threw in
a pardonable boast over the services he was rendering the country, the
sacrifices he was making, and the rapid growth and efficiency of the Two
Hundredth Regiment.

"All brass is not fashioned and moulded in foundries, where men do
swelter like to those standing in the flames of the fiery furnace," says
an old writer, Arnold of Thorndean, "but much of it doth become shaped
in the human countenance."

CHAPTER XVI.

TWO MODES OF WRITING ROMANCES--MORE OF THE UP-TOWN MYSTERY--A WATCH, AN
ESCAPE, AND A POLICE POST-MORTEM ON A VACANT HOUSE.

The question may have been asked, before this point in narration, by
some of those who have been induced to follow the progress of this
story--What has become of some of the prominent characters first
introduced, Dexter Ralston, the stalwart Virginian, and the girl Kate,
who seemed at that time to be so closely identified with the movements
of the "red woman." The curiosity is a natural one, whether there really
was such a secret of disloyalty, hidden away either in the house on
Prince Street or that on East 5--, as justified Tom Leslie and Walter
Harding in their long ride at midnight and their subsequent interview
with Police-Superintendent Kennedy. To some extent this question can be
answered, at this point; but there will