"You mustn't tell me your army plans, Vint. I'm a soldier," and Jack
drew himself up with martial pomposity, "and--and--perhaps I ought to
arrest you now as an enemy, you know. I will look in the articles of war
and find out my duty in such cases." Jack waved his arm reassuringly, as
if to bid the rebel take heart for the moment--he would not hurry in the
matter. Vincent eyed his comrade with such a woe-begone mingling of
alarm and comic indignation that Jack forgot his possible part as agent
of his country's laws, and said, soothingly: "Never mind, Vint, I'm not
really a full soldier in the technical sense until the regiment is
mustered in at Washington. After that, of course, you know very well it
would he treason to give aid or comfort to the country's enemies."

Vincent didn't leave next day, nor for a good many days. He seemed to
get a good deal of "aid and comfort" from those who should have been his
enemies. Mistress Sprague found that he was not in a fit state to
travel; that he needed nursing to prepare him for his journey, and that
no place was so fit as the great guest-chamber in the baronial Sprague
mansion, near his friend Jack. Strange to say, Vincent's eagerness to
get to Richmond and his shoulder-straps were forgotten in the agreeable
pastimes of the big house, where he spent hours enlightening Olympia on
the wonders the Southern soldiers were to perform and the glory that he
(Vincent) was to win. He went of a morning to the post-office, where
Jack was installed recruiting-agent for Acredale township, and made very
merry over the homespun stuff enrolled in defense of the Union.

"Our strapping cavaliers will make short work of your gawky bumpkins;"
he remarked to Jack as the recruits loitered about the wide, shaded
streets, waiting to be forwarded to the rendezvous.