“Yes, sir, I belong to the army,” added the prisoner.
“I s’pose you won’t mind telling us what army you belong to, ’cause it mought make a difference in our calculations,” added the spokesman.
Tom did not know but that it might make some difference in his calculations, and for this reason he was exceedingly unwilling to commit himself before he ascertained upon which side his questioners belonged.
“Can you tell me where I am?” asked Tom, resolved to use a little strategy in obtaining the desired information.
“May be I can,” replied the picket.
“Will you do so?”
“Sartin, stranger—you are in the woods,” added Secesh; whereat his companions indulged in a wholesome chuckle, which assured Tom that they were human, and his hopes rose accordingly.
“Thank you,” replied Tom, with infinite good nature.
“You say you belong to the army, and I say you are in the woods,” said the soldier, repeating the double postulate, so that the essence of the joke should by no possibility fail to penetrate the cerebellum of his auditor.
Tom was perfectly willing to acknowledge that he was in the woods, both actually and metaphorically, and he was very much disturbed to know how he should get out of the woods—a problem which has puzzled wiser heads than his, even in less perplexing emergencies. He was fearful that, if he declared himself to be a Union soldier, he should share the fate of others whom he had seen coolly bayoneted on that eventful day.