"When I become a soldier," he said, "and put myself under another man's command, I want that other man to be one who knows something about the business. Captain Skinner knows what to do with a gun and a gunner, and I've a pretty well-defined notion that most of our coming captains have all that yet to learn, and besides—well, I've given you reasons enough."
"Besides what, Marshall? What were you going to say?"
"O, nothing that you would understand or sympathise with. It's only that somehow I don't want to be in a company of gentlemen turned soldiers, where I should be sure to meet our kind of people on terms of social equality now and then. As a common soldier, I should find it rather embarrassing at a military ball to have a lady put me on her dancing-list while scornfully refusing a like favour perhaps to the officer who must assign me to guard-duty next morning."
In thus answering, Marshall Pollard equivocated somewhat. He made no mention of the little jessamine and honeysuckle incident, but perhaps there was something behind that which helped to determine his course in choosing Captain Skinner's company for his own, thus placing himself among men wholly without the pale of that society in which sprigs of jessamine are given and cherished, and now and then thrown out of the window. At any rate, the young man seemed disposed to change the course of the conversation.
"Now, Baillie," he said, "you've catechised me quite enough for one morning. Tell me about yourself. Why are you going off to Richmond to enlist in one of the batteries there, instead of joining your neighbours and friends here in organising one or other of the companies they are forming?"
"For the simple reason that I want to be in the middle of this mix as soon as possible. Those Richmond batteries are already fit to take the field, and they'll be hurling shells at the enemy and dodging shells on their own account before these companies here learn which way a sergeant's chevrons should point. I want to get to the front among the first, that's all."
Sending for Sam, he bade that worthy pack a small saddle valise for him with a few belongings, and when, an hour later, the two friends were ready for their departure, Sam presented himself, clad in his best, and carrying a multitudinous collection of skillets, kettles, and frying-pans, with other and less soldierly belongings. When asked by his master, "What does this mean?" Sam answered, in seeming astonishment at the question:
"Why, Mas' Baillie, you'se a-gwine to de wah, an' of co'se Sam's a-gwine along to take k'yar o' you."
"Of course Sam is going to do no such thing," answered the young man. "Go and put away your pots and pans."
"But, Mas' Baillie," remonstrated the negro boy, in a nearly tearful voice, "who's a-gwine to take k'yar o' you ef Sam ain't thar? Whose a-gwine to clean yer boots, an' bresh yer clo'se, an' cook yer victuals, an' all that?"