"Because I wish, sir, to lay upon him the hands of violence. I would thrash him and beat him until he yelled for mercy, and then I would thrash him and beat him again. I should want the original pair of seven-leagued boots, not that I might make such fast time, but that I might kick him at a single kick from one county to another, and back, and then over and over past counting. I'd duck him in a river until he gasped for breath, I'd drag him naked through a briar patch, and then I'd tar and feather him, and ride him on a rail."
"Heavens, Arthur! I didn't dream that your nature contained so much cruelty! Who is this person over whose torture you would gloat like a red Indian?"
"It is the man who first said that one Southerner could whip five Yankees."
"Arthur," said Colonel Talbot, "your anger is just and becomes you. When the war is over, if we all are spared we'll form a group and hunt this fellow until we find him. And then, please God, if the gallows of Haman is still in existence, we'll hang him on it with promptness and dispatch. I believe in the due and orderly process of the law, but in this case lynching is not only justifiable, but it's an honor to the country."
"Well spoken, Leonidas! Well spoken!" said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire. "I'm glad that Arthur mentioned the matter, and we'll bear it in mind. You can count upon me."
"And here is coffee," said Happy Tom. "I made this myself, the camp cook liking me and giving me a chance. I'd really be a wonderful cook if I had the proper training, and I may come to it, if we lose the war. Still, the chance even then is slight, because my father, when red war showed its edge over the horizon, put all his money in the best British securities. So we could do no more than lose the plantation."
"Happy," said Colonel Talbot, gravely rebuking, "I am surprised at your father. I thought he was a patriot."
"He is, sir, but he's a financier first, and I may be thankful for it some day. I'll venture the prediction right now that if we lose this war not a single Confederate bill will be in the possession of Thomas Langdon, Sr. Others may have bales of it, worth less per pound than cotton, but not your humble servant's father, who, I sometimes think, has lots more sense than your humble servant's father's son."
Colonel Leonidas Talbot shook his head slowly.
"Finance is a mystery to me," he said. "In the dear old South that I have always known, the law, the army and the church were and are considered the high callings. To speak in fine, rounded periods was considered the great gift. In my young days, Harry, I went with my father by stage coach to your own State, Kentucky, to hear that sublime orator, the great Henry Clay."