He gradually glided away from me, and for some time marched at the other side of the column.
I had noticed that he was walking without his jacket. The guards were accosting the officers in their neighborhood, and had taken his among other vestments. Most of the party of sad victims were well peeled ere their melancholy was an hour older. A rough boor turned to me and demanded my gauntlets. A basilisk fire shone through his eyes, and the breath which he blew through the grating of his teeth, over his thin, livid lips, and into my face, was freighted heavily with the fumes of whiskey. When I made bold to refuse him, he was dumbfoundered in astonishment, and was pleased to compress his jaws.
"You d——d Yankee!" he screamed, profanely, red with the inspiration of his anger, "if you don't give me your gauntlets, I'll tear your hands from your body."
There was enough energy in his action to have guarantied even a more vehement man[oe]uvre; and as he made his threat, he raised his arm above me. But I had it in my mind to see myself through the affair in the course that I had chosen; and having noticed our mild officer a few paces in the rear of us, mounted upon his horse, and placidly sitting with his hand upon the pommel, I turned to him at once.
"If you will do me the favor, Sir," I said, with some gravity of manner, "I would like you to accept my gauntlets,—a new pair from the box, that has only seen this day's work."
"They've had an unlucky birthday," he said, not inaptly, and rather courteously, as he took them.
"Yes, my gloves heretofore have all been spoiled by the sabre," I replied, keeping step with his charger. "I don't know but that you have to thank a drunken guard for the pair, Sir; since he threatened to kill me, if I kept them on my hands."
He gave a hasty look for his orderly.
"Point out the man, if you can, Sir," he said to me, and beckoned a trooper to his side.
"I am obliged to you for your interference," I answered. "The man marches third on the left there, and has his piece slung behind him. I hope that some day, Sir, I may do you a favor."