"Never mind; I have a common school education and my health. What more can a boy wish?"
"It is as much as I had upon which to start. But I might have left you more. I deserve a pension as a soldier."
"You never pushed your claim, did you?"
"Yes, once. But I never told any of you, for fear of raising false hopes. I did apply, and it was all straight, but at the last moment the Department decided that I must have another witness to prove my identity, and this I could not get."
"You had one witness, then?"
"Yes. A man named Crawford, who was in our regiment. He was appointed an officer on the same day I was shot; but, as he was appointed after the occurrence they held that his single witnessing was not enough, and so I had to hunt for another."
"And you never found the other?"
"No, though I hunted high and low. Some who saw the affair must be still living, but I have not their addresses, nor do I know how to find them."
"Did you ever advertise in the papers?"
"Yes; I spent fifty dollars in the columns of the leading dailies, but without success."