expense of the population of the United States, or whether exultant
beyond bounds at the knowledge that he could escape it, by his age, in
spite of them all,--he uttered the fatal word, oblivious that Judge Owen
stood angry and astonished at the parlor door, and that others to whom
he had so roundly sworn that he was only thirty-two, were within
hearing.

[Footnote 17: March 20th, 1863.]

"You meddling fool!--what can that draft do to _me_? I am exempt by
age!"

"It is false! it is false!" cried the pseudo-Captain, driving the victim
to the wall more closely than even _he_ knew. "You are not an exempt,
and the Governor shall take care of _you_."

"It is a lie!" yelled the Colonel, now incensed beyond all recollection
of time, place or auditors. "I am fifty-four!"

"Fifty-four!" There seemed to be a chorus of that compound word coming
from the group of ladies; and even Judge Owen, who had been so solemnly
assured that his intended son-in-law was more than twenty years younger,
could not avoid joining in the astonished exclamation: "Fifty-four!"

But the climax had not yet been reached. There had long been a suspicion
which almost amounted to a certainty, in the mind of Frank Wallace, with
reference to one point of the gallant Colonel's personal adornment; and
he was now quite enough carried away by the reckless mischief of his
nature, to determine that that suspicion should be verified or
disproved.

"Fifty-four?" echoed the scapegrace. "Impossible! No Commissioner will
believe any such story! Look at your hair--not a thread of gray in it!
Bah!" and before the Colonel could make any effectual attempt to prevent
the movement, the Captain had allowed his cane to fall to the floor and
made a sudden and determined grab at the head-covering of the man of
exempt years. Any _effectual_ attempt to prevent the movement, it has
been said: he did make an attempt to prevent it, however, as with a
newly-awakened consciousness of danger. The only result of this sudden
throwing out of his hands and scrambling with them, was that they came
in sudden and violent contact with the head-covering and facial
adornments of the pseudo-Captain, and that before any one else in the
room could become fully aware of what had happened, the green patch, the
green spectacles and gray wig which had metamorphosed the young man were
all cleared away, and the curly head and bright face of Frank Wallace,
printer and mischief-maker, stood fully rev