CHAPTER XVI.
Colonel Martin Culpepper was standing with, one foot on the window ledge in the office of Philemon R.Ward one bright spring morning watching the procession of humanity file into the post-office and out into the street upon the regular business of life.

Mrs.Watts McHurdie, a bride of five years and obviously proud of it, hurried by, and Mrs.John Barclay drove down the street in her phaeton; Oscar Fernald, with a pencil behind his ear, came out of his office licking an envelope and loped into the post-office and out like a dog looking for his bone; and then a lank figure sauntered down the street, stopping here and there to talk with a passerby, stepping into a stairway to light a cigar, and betimes leaning languidly against an awning post in the sun and overhauling farmers passing down Main Street in their wagons.
"He's certainly a gallus-looking slink," ejaculated the colonel.
The general, writing at his desk, asked, "Who ?" "Our old friend and comrade in arms, Lige Bemis." At the blank look on the general's face the colonel shook his head wearily.

"Don't know what a gallus-looking slink is, do you?
General, the more I live with you damn Yankees and fight for your flag and die for your country, sir, the more astonished I am at your limited and provincial knowledge of the United States language.

Here you are, a Harvard graduate, with the Harvard pickle dripping off your ears, confessing such ignorance of your mother-tongue.

General, a gallus-looking slink is four hoss thieves, three revenue officers, a tin pedler, and a sheep-killing dog, all rolled into one man.