"Oh, affairs seem to be improving," General Garwood replied.
"Well, now, I ain't so up and down certain about that, gener'l," said Goolsby, settling himself back, and frowning until his little eyes disappeared. "Looks like to me that things git wuss and wuss. I ain't no big man, and I'm ruther disj'inted when it comes right down to politics; but blame me if it don't look to me mighty like the whole of creation is driftin' 'round loose."
"Ah, well," said the general soothingly, "a great many things are uncomfortable; there is a good deal of unnecessary irritation growing out of new and unexpected conditions. But we are getting along better than we are willing to admit. We are all fond of grumbling."
"That's so," said Goolsby, with the air of a man who is willing to make any sacrifice for the sake of a discussion; "that's so. But I tell you we're havin' mighty tough times, gener'l—mighty tough times. Yonder's the Yankees on one side, and here's the blamed niggers on t'other, and betwixt and betweenst 'em a white man's got mighty little chance. And then, right on top of the whole caboodle, here comes the panic in the banks, and the epizooty 'mongst the cattle. I tell you, gener'l, it's tough times, and it's in-about as much as an honest man can do to pay hotel bills and have a ticket ready to show up when the conductor comes along."
General Garwood smiled sympathetically, and Goolsby went on: "Here I've been runnin' up and down the country tryin' to sell a book, and I ain't sold a hunderd copies sence I started—no, sir, not a hunderd copies. Maybe you'd like to look at it, gener'l," continued Goolsby, stiffening up a little. "If I do say it myself, it's in-about the best book that a man'll git a chance to thumb in many a long day."
"What book is it, Goolsby?" the general inquired.
Goolsby sprang up, waddled rapidly to where he had left his satchel, and returned, bringing a large and substantial-looking volume.
"It's a book that speaks for itself any day in the week," he said, running the pages rapidly between his fingers; "it's a history of our own great conflict—'The Rise and Fall of the Rebellion,' by Schuyler Paddleford. I don't know what the blamed publishers wanted to put in 'Rebellion' for. I told 'em, says I: 'Gentlemen, it'll be up-hill work with this in the Sunny South. Call it "The Conflict,"' says I. But they wouldn't listen, and now I have to work like a blind nigger splittin' rails. But she's a daisy, gener'l, as shore as you're born. She jess reads right straight along from cover to cover without a bobble. Why, sir, I never know'd what war was till I meandered through the sample pages of this book. And they've got your picture in here, gener'l, jest as natural as life—all for five dollars in cloth, eight in liberry style, and ten in morocker."
General Garwood glanced over the specimen pages with some degree of interest, while Goolsby continued to talk.
"Now, betwixt you and me, gener'l," he went on confidentially, "I don't nigh like the style of that book, particular where it rattles up our side. I wa'n't in the war myself, but blame me if it don't rile me when I hear outsiders a-cussin' them that was. I come mighty nigh not takin' holt of it on that account; but 'twouldn't have done no good, not a bit. If sech a book is got to be circulated around here, it better be circulated by some good Southron—a man that's a kind of antidote to the pizen, as it were. If I don't sell it, some blamed Yankee'll jump in and gallop around with it. And I tell you what, gener'l, betwixt you and me and the gate-post, it's done come to that pass where a man can't afford to be too plegged particular; if he stops for to scratch his head and consider whether he's a gentleman, some other feller'll jump in and snatch the rations right out of his mouth. That's why I'm a-paradin' around tryin' to sell this book."