"What! The fellow that has been going along nearly double, with both hands over the pit of his stomach, for a week past?"
"The same," resumed Birdy. "He has been going it on diarrhœa lately; before that he was running on rheumatism. Well, you know he has been figuring for a discharge ever since he heard the cannonading at the second Bull Run, but couldn't make it before yesterday."
"How did he make it?" inquired several, earnestly.
"Fished for it," quietly remarked Birdy.
"Come, Birdy, this is too old a crowd for any jokes of yours. Whose canteen have you been sucking Commissary out of?" broke in one of his hearers.
"Nary time; I'm honest, fellows. He fished for it, and I'll tell you how," resumed Birdy, adjusting the rubber blanket upon which he had seated himself.
"You see old Pigey was riding along the path
that winds around the hill to Corps Head-Quarters, when he spied this fellow, Long Tom, as they call him, sitting on a stump, and alongside of the big sink, that some of our mess helped to dig when on police duty last. Tom held in both hands a long pole, over the sink, with a twine string hanging from it—for all the world as if he was fishing. On came old Pigey; but Tom never budged.
"'What are you doing there, sir?' said the General.
"'Fishing,' said Tom, without turning his head.