I felt that my claim was secured by the luggage at the express-office, and I called for it the next day. The gentlemanly clerk of the establishment blandly showed me my name, neatly written in a strange Teutonic hand, to a receipt for the property. Just then I had information that a box addressed to my care was lying at the Hoboken office of the German steamers. Indiscreetly mentioning this fact to the Prussian Consul’s lawyer, I was informed that it would be necessary to take the box in evidence, and I prudently refrained from making further efforts for its recovery.
It was with a chastened spirit that I paid a considerable bill at my tailor’s and ordered the overcoat sent to my address; and it was with only mitigated satisfaction that I heard of the sending in irons to his company in California of deserter Stabenow.
If the Herr Lieutenant Graf zu Dohna-Schlodien of the Gardecorps Kürassier is still living, I beg to inform him that his overcoat—the only memento of a grave Schwindelei—is now a comfortable wrap to a Rhode Island farmer, who hopes that its rightful owner is as snugly clad in his winter rides about Versailles.
TWO SCOUTS.
In the desultory and sporadic warfare carried on in the Southwest, the scout—or “skeout,” according to the dialect of the region—was a very important element of our organization, and it is amusing now to recall the variety of odd-fish of every description who applied for the remunerative employment that this branch of the service afforded.
The interest of our life at Union City was not a little enhanced by two specimens of this genus with whom we had much to do,—Pat Dixon and “The Blind Preacher.”