Between him and the Indian shoe, this likeness doth come in,
One made a mock o' virtue, and one a moccasin!"
Laughter and applause were, in mid-roar, cut by Randolph's voice calling:
Corollary first: If Daddy Longlegs stole the Indian's shoe to keep his foot warm, that was no excuse for him to steal his house, to keep his wigwam.
And again he broke down—only to renew—the chorus with:
Corollary second: Because the Indian's shoe did not fit any Mohawk, was no reason that it wouldn't fit Narragansett!
Such, in brief retrospect was the Mosaic Club! Such in part the fun and fancy and frolic that filled those winter nights in Richmond, when sleet and mud made movements of armies, "Heaven bless us! a thing of naught!"
The old colonel—that staff veteran, so often quoted in these pages—was a rare, if unconscious humorist. Gourmet born, connoisseur by instinct and clubman by life habit, the colonel writhed in spirit under discomfort and camp fare, even while he bore both heroically in the flesh; his two hundred and sixty pounds of it! Once, Styles Staple and Will Wyatt met him, inspecting troops in a West Virginia town; and they received a long lecture, à la Brillat Savarin, on enormities of the kitchen.
"And these people have fine wines, too," sadly wound up the colonel. "Marvelous wines, egad! But they don't know how to let you enjoy them!"
"'Tis a hard case," sympathized Styles, "I do hear sometimes of a fellow getting a stray tea, but as for a dinner! It's no use, colonel; these people either don't dine themselves, or they imagine we don't."