CHAPTER XXI.
"_Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm._" Gray Jim scarcely felt the jolting of the ambulance over the city stones, and his impatience and eagerness to get across the intervening space made dust, and heat, and weariness of travel seem but as feather weights, not to be cared for, nor indeed considered at all; though, in fact, his arm complained, and his leg ached distressingly, and he was faint and weak without confessing it long before the tiresome journey reached its end.
"No matter," he said to himself; "it'll be all well, or forgotten, at least, when I see Sallie once more; and so, what odds ?" The end was gained at last, and he would have gone to her fast as certain Rosinantes, yclept hackhorses, could carry him, but, stopping for a moment to consider, he thought, "No, that will never do! Go to her looking like such a guy?
Nary time.

I'll get scrubbed, and put on a clean shirt, and make myself decent, before she sees me.

She always used to look nice as a new pin, and she liked me to look so too; so I'd better put my best foot foremost when she hasn't laid eyes on me for such an age.

I'm fright enough, anyway, goodness knows, with my thinness, and my old lame leg; so--" sticking his head out of the window, and using his lungs with astonishing vigor--"Driver! streak like lightning, will you, to the 'Merchants'?
and you shall have extra fare." "Hold your blab there," growled the driver; "I ain't such a pig yet as to take double fare from a wounded soldier.

You'll pay me well at half-price,--when we get where you want to go,"-- which they did soon.
"No!" said Jehu, thrusting back part of the money, "I ain't agoin' to take it, so you needn't poke it out at me.