"Did your brother ask you any thing about the Bellevite, Percy?"
"Not a thing: he would hardly speak to me, for he says I have disgraced the family. But, Christy, now I think of it, you are not on the South side of this question."
"How do you know I am not?" asked Christy, laughing.
"I heard my brother say so; and that he did not wish to have you, on any account, go near that other steamer."
"I think we won't talk about that just now," added Christy cautiously, for he was not inclined to have Percy know too much about his affairs at present.
"Why not? After all my brother has done, and is trying to do, to me, I don't think I am exactly on the South side of the question any more than you are," said Percy, looking with interest into the face of his companion. "If your father is a Union man, as Lindley says he is, he don't mean to have the Bellevite go into the service of the Confederacy."
"That is not bad logic, with the premises on which you base it."
"Just talk English, if you please, Christy."
"The English of it is, that if my father is a Union man, as your brother says he is, the Bellevite is not going into the Southern navy," replied Christy, willing to encourage the major's brother.
"I can understand that, Christy. Now, you are going on board of your father's steamer if you can get there."