Ephum shuffled out, and his heart was lead as he closed the store that night.
Mr. Hopper has boarded a Fifth Street car, which jangles on with many halts until it comes to Bremen, a German settlement in the north of the city. At Bremen great droves of mules fill the street, and crowd the entrances of the sale stables there. Whips are cracking like pistol shots, Gentlemen with the yellow cavalry stripe of the United States Army are pushing to and fro among the drivers and the owners, and fingering the frightened animals. A herd breaks from the confusion and is driven like a whirlwind down the street, dividing at the Market House. They are going to board the Government transport—to die on the battlefields of Kentucky and Missouri.
Mr. Hopper alights from the car with complacency. He stands for a while on a corner, against the hot building, surveying the busy scene, unnoticed. Mules! Was it not a prophecy,—that drove which sent him into Mr. Carvel's store?
Presently a man with a gnawed yellow mustache and a shifty eye walks out of one of the offices, and perceives our friend.
“Howdy, Mr. Hopper?” says he.
Eliphalet extends a hand to be squeezed and returned. “Got them vouchers?” he asks. He is less careful of his English here.
“Wal, I jest reckon,” is the answer: The fellow was interrupted by the appearance of a smart young man in a smart uniform, who wore an air of genteel importance. He could not have been more than two and twenty, and his face and manners were those of a clerk. The tan of field service was lacking on his cheek, and he was black under the eyes.
“Hullo, Ford,” he said, jocularly.
“Howdy, Cap,” retorted the other. “Wal, suh, that last lot was an extry, fo' sure. As clean a lot as ever I seed. Not a lump on 'em. Gov'ment ain't cheated much on them there at one-eighty a head, I reckon.”
Mr. Ford said this with such an air of conviction and such a sober face that the Captain smiled. And at the same time he glanced down nervously at the new line of buttons on his chest.