“Whew!” laughed the general. “I wish some of our colonels and brigadiers would take a lesson from you. Never mind, Lieutenant Somers; you will deserve all you ever get.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Go to your quarters now. Here,” he added, dashing off a note at his table, in which he desired that Somers might be excused from duty for the next two days, to enable him to recover from the fatigues of his arduous expedition.
I need not inform my readers how soundly our hero slept in his shelter tent that night, nor how his slumbers were disturbed by a horrid rebel with a bowie-knife, and a horrid feminine monstrosity which seemed to be called Sue by her attendant demons; but he slept as a tired boy only can sleep.
The next morning the brigade was relieved from picket duty, and the regiment returned to its camp. Captain de Banyan had neither seen nor heard from his young friend since his departure on the forenoon of the preceding day. Of course he was overjoyed to see him, as well as intensely curious to know where he had been, what he had done, and whether he had been promoted. Somers told his adventures to the mess, omitting such military information as was “contraband” in the camp.
“Somers, my dear fellow, you are a man after my own heart!” exclaimed the captain, grasping his hand, and wringing it with all the enthusiasm of his fervid nature. “Somers, my boy, did you ever hear of a man having his double?”
“I have read of such things in old legends.”
“I believe in it, Somers. You are my double! You are my second self! You are as near like me as one pea is like another! Just before the battle of Magenta——”
At this interesting point in the conversation, the officers of the mess burst into an involuntary roar of laughter, ending up Magenta with a long dash.
“Not exactly like you, Captain de Banyan,” added Somers.