"There may be a delay in your plans, Tom," said Harry. "I'd make them flexible if I were you."
"I intend to carry 'em out sooner or later. What's that you're reading, Arthur?"
"A New York newspaper. I won't let you see it, Tom, but I'll read portions of it to you. I'll have to expurgate it or you'd have a rush of blood to the head, you're so excitable. It makes a lot of fun of us. Tells that old joke, 'hay foot, straw foot,' when we drill. Says the Yankees now have three hundred thousand men under the best of commanders, and that the Yankee fleet will soon close up all our ports. Says a belt of steel will be stretched about us."
"Then," said Langdon, "just as soon as they get that belt of steel stretched we'll break it in two in a half dozen places. But go on with those feats of fancy that you're reading from that paper."
"Makes fun of our government. Says McDowell will be in Richmond in a month."
"Just the time that Tom gives himself to get into Washington," interrupted Harry. "But go on."
"Makes fun of our army, too, especially of us South Carolinians. Says we've brought servants along to spread tents for us, load our guns for us, and take care of us generally. Says that even in war we won't work."
"They're right, so far as Tom is concerned," said Harry. "We're going to give him a watch as the laziest man among the Invincibles."
"It's not laziness, it's wisdom," said Langdon. "What's the use of working when you don't have to, especially in a June as hot as this one is? I conserve my energy. Besides, I'm going to take care of myself in ways that you fellows don't know anything about. Watch me."
He took his clasp-knife and dug a little hole in the ground. Then he repeated over it solemnly and slowly: