Gard looked sympathetic and reached down into the tails of his coat.
"There's only one thing, seh, that's equally good for disappointment and wet feet. This heah whiskey never paid any duty to the United States—I have my doubts, seh, whether it paid any to the Confed'acy. I should like to devote a generous percentage to the use of the Confed'acy. You wouldn't mind assuming charge of that percentage?"
A moment later the other asked, "Have you got the tract that Yankee scout gave you?"
"Who?"
"The Dunker."
"Oh! ve'y good! As applied to me, I took the ref'ences to be discourteous. I gave it, seh, to a niggeh."
[Chapter XVII]
On the Question of the Exact Location of the Divinity which is Ultimately Called Worth While
There is said to be a divinity in our discontent, the pull of some large law and onward gravitation such as tends to make vivid rivers, and only where it fails to influence are stagnant pools. On stagnant pools the water-lilies float, no doubt, white and passionate in fragrance, and cardinal flowers are along their shores; but law and divinity seem to be with the rivers—such rivers as the Shenandoah, which Gard met at different points, and often enough during October, until it had become a familiar sight—until the leaves of the oaks had turned a burnished red-and-bronze, and the Confederate army had moved far up the valley. He passed through the army, around it, and back again, explained his scheme for the capture of Washington, collected orders for the delivery of unlicensed whiskey, and walked in the shadow of his discontent.