rest of the boys were scribbling away for dear life, with drumheads and
knapsacks and cracker-boxes for writing-desks, he would sit serenely
smoking his pipe, but looking out on us through rings of smoke with a
face expressive of the tenderest interest.

"Look here, Quite So," Strong would say, "the mail-bag closes in half an
hour. Ain't you going to write?"

"I believe not to-day," Bladburn would reply, as if he had written
yesterday, or would write to-morrow: but he never wrote.

He had become a great favorite with us, and with all the officers of the
regiment. He talked less than any man I ever knew, but there was nothing
sinister or sullen in his reticence. It was sunshine,--warmth and
brightness, but no voice. Unassuming and modest to the verge of
shyness, he impressed every one as a man of singular pluck and nerve.

"Do you know," said Curtis to me one day, "that that fellow Quite So is
clear grit, and when we come to close quarters with our Palmetto
brethren over yonder, he'll do something devilish?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Well, nothing quite explainable; the exasperating coolness of the man,
as much as anything. This morning the boys were teasing Muffin Fan" [a
small mulatto girl who used to bring muffins into camp three times a
week,--at the peril of her life!] "and Jemmy Blunt of Company K--you
know him--was rather rough on the girl, when Quite So, who had been
reading under a tree, shut one finger in his book, walked over to where
the boys were skylarking, and with the smile of a juvenile angel on his