Julius had proven himself a valuable servant. He was the best cook in the regiment, and what was still more important, he was the most skillful thief and the most plausible liar in the army. He could defend himself so nobly from the insinuations of the suspicious that they would apologize for the wrong unwittingly done his character. John had not lived so well since he could remember.
"Julius, you're a handy man in war!" he exclaimed after a hearty supper on fried chicken.
"Yassah—I manage ter git 'long, sah."
Julius took up his banjo and began to tune it for an accompaniment to his songs. He had a mellow rhythmical voice that always brought the crowd. He began with his favorite that never failed to please his master. The way he rolled his eyes and sang with his hands and feet and every muscle of his body was the source of unending interest to his Northern audience.
He ran his fingers lightly over the strings and the men threw down their dirty packs of cards and crowded around John's tent. Julius only sang one line at a time and picked his banjo between them to a low wailing sound of his own invention:
"O! far' you well, my Mary Ann;
Far' you well, my dear!
I've no one left to love me now
And little do I care——"
He paused between the stanzas and picked his banjo to a few prose interpolations of his own.
"Dat's what I'm a tellin' ye now, folks—little do I care!"
He knew his master had been crossed in love and he rolled his eyes and nodded his woolly head in triumphant approval. John smiled wanly as he drifted slowly into his next stanza.
"An' ef I had a scoldin' wife
I'd whip her sho's yer born,
I'd take her down to New Orleans
An' trade her off fer corn——"