"Sir," said the Captain, "your sister and I have cause for smiling; we are happy."
The cub took from his side-pocket a revolver and cocked it. Penrose stood up, and Barbara threw herself between him and her brother.
"Coward!" cried the cub, "to allow yourself to be shielded by a woman!"
The cub, under the influence of Pro-slavery precedents, had really got it into his thick head, that he, under the circumstances, was the man of chivalry and valor, and that because the unarmed Penrose would not present a fair shot to his revolver, that gentleman was chargeable with an excess of poltroonery of which only a Yankee could be guilty.
The cub's heroics were ignominiously cut short. Suddenly his two arms were seized from behind, while his pistol was wrenched from his grasp. Two armed policemen, followed by Mr. Dinwiddie and Nero, had entered the room.
"Am I betrayed?" exclaimed the cub.
"Blockhead!" said his father, "Fort Warren shall henceforth be your school, till we knock a little common-sense into that obstinate skull of yours."
"Fort Warren!" cried Cully, gnashing his teeth. "But I'm here on a furlough, disguised as a sailor, you perceive. I promised to be back to my regiment by Friday. Fort Warren?"
"Never!" shrieked Mrs. Dinwiddie, entering the room from the conservatory, where she had been hiding. "Kill me, but don't compel my son to break his pledge to the Confederate authority."
"Bah!" said Dinwiddie. "Officers, take the booby away."