“I l'arnt the habit in the army,” he would say. “I never teched tobacker till I went to the war.”
People would look inquiringly at his empty sleeve.
“I got that at Gettysburg in the second day's fight,” he would explain, complacently.
He was often asked whether he was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic.
“No; 'tain't worth while. I done my fightin' in '63 and '64—them times. I don't care about doin' it over again in talk. Talk's cheap.”
This made folks smile, for he was continually fighting his battles over again in conversation. Every regular customer had been made acquainted with the part that he had taken in each contest, where he had stood when he received his wound, what regiment had the honour of possessing him, and how promptly he had enlisted against the wishes of parents and sweetheart.
“Of course you get a pension,” many would observe.
He would shake his head and answer, in a mild tone of a man consciously repressing a pardonable pride.
“I never 'plied, and as long as the retail tobacker trade keeps up like this, I reckon I won't make no pull on the gover'ment treash'ry.”
And he would puff at his cigar vigorously, beam upon the group that surrounded his chair, and start on one of his long trains of reminiscences.