"Let me pass, old man?" says the vain youngster, with the smart air of one who wishes to get to his seat.
The venerable stranger hardly raised his stern old eyes at the flippant remark, but ate another chestnut, as though no one had spoken.
"Come, my friend," says the conceited stripling, with fresh arrogance, "Be kind enough to move for a moment. I am Colonel P——."
In an instant, the aged frame sprang to his feet, opened all the windows, turned the conductor out of the car, locked the doors, mashed his hat down over his eyes, and frantically tearing open his dilapidated overcoat, displayed the star of a major-general!
In an instant, the newly-fledged colonel lost all his knowing braggadocio, and cowered before the glorious old veteran, like a cowed cur (female of a bull-dog).
"Wr-r-r-etch!" exclaimed the hoary commander, in tones of thunder, relieved with the vivid lightning of a hiccup, "Do you know me!"
The abashed young boaster could only bow his head in shame, and took the first opportunity to dash himself from the vehicle wherein he had been taught such a lesson. And this should teach us all, my boy, that bad clothes are not always a sure sign of the wearer being only a reporter for the Tribune; nor do the ordinary symptoms of intoxication always indicate that the possessor lacks high rank in our national army.
Some hours later, on this same car, there transpired a somewhat different scene, but one equally calculated to prove that there is indeed a North. Twenty-three wealthy secessionists were in the swift vehicle, the only other passenger being a handsome lad of about sixteen, in the uniform of a brigadier. Rendered confident by their numbers, the enemies of our beneficent form of government entered into a venomous discussion of the siege of Vicksburg, asserting that the Yazoo Expedition had not yet captured forty-two steamboats of Confederacies, and that the announcement of the capture of the Mississippi River was premature.
The young soldier of the Republic went on with some candy he was eating, an apparently indifferent spectator of this symposium of treason; but the close spectator could not have failed to observe that his whole form was invisibly convulsed with a patriotic indignation. Presently, however, when one of the more hideous conspirators heartlessly remarked that we had not heard much of our army in Virginia lately, endurance ceased to be a virtue, and the young hero could no longer restrain himself.
In a moment his whole aspect changed; his eyes burst into a devouring blaze, and his cheeks were in flames before aught could be done to check the conflagration. Animated by the strength of a giant, in a cause which he believed to be a noble one, he shot the traitors one by one with his revolver, and buried them in an obscure swamp near the track; he paid the driver and conductor their wages, and induced them to enlist for three years; then, after selling both the horses at auction, he broke the car into kindling-wood for the use of the poor.