"So Francois there sent him a bottle of that Xeres in the outer bin yonder—we sell it to you for two dollars the bottle—and he said that was wine!"
But of the other family—who live in an American hurry and eat by steam—was the goblin diner of whom a friend told me in accents of awe. One day, at the St. Charles, a resident stopped him on the way to their accustomed table:
"Have you seen these people eat?" he asked. "No? Then we'll stop and look. This table is reserved for the up-river men who have little time in the city and make the most of it. While they swallow soup, a nimble waiter piles the nearest dishes around them, without regard to order or quality. They eat fish, roast and fried, on the same plate, swallowing six inches of knife blade at every bolt. Then they draw the nearest pie to them, cut a great segment in it, make three huge arcs therein with as many snaps of their teeth; seize a handful of nuts and raisins and rush away, with jaws still working like a flouring-mill. Ten minutes is their limit for dinner." My friend only smiled. The other adding:
"You doubt it? Here comes a fine specimen; hot, healthy and evidently busy. See, he looks at his watch! I'll bet you a bottle of St. Peray he 'does' his dinner within the ten."
"Done"—and they sat opposite him, watch in hand.
And that wonderful Hoosier dined in seven minutes!
CHAPTER IX.
A CHANGE OF BASE.
Whatever activity and energetic preparation there may have been elsewhere, Pensacola was the first organized camp in the South. General Bragg and his adjutant-general were both old officers, and in the face of the enemy the utmost rigor of discipline prevailed. There had been no active operations on this line, yet; but the Alabama and the Louisiana troops collected—to the number of about nine thousand—had already become soldiers, in all the details of camp life; and went through it in as cheerful a spirit as if they had been born there.