with a half significant smile, and touching the General on the elbow,
said:--'Ye ain't got a spare hat and pea-jacket to lend a body?'

"'Bless you, Bunkum, you are of the South!--anything you want is at
your bidding. New England (she's a trump!) can take care of herself;
let the storm threaten as it may, she never trips. We must do for
Kentuck and Carolina:--the black pig must have his swill if the rest
find an empty trough.' 'Thank you! thank you! General; our States
will stand firm to you--Bunkum himself never will forsake you;' spoke
thus thankfully the ghost of the old man as it took leave of the old
General and disappeared. Here I awoke from my dream to painful
reflections.




CHAPTER V.

A MORNING ADVENTURE.


"As Uncle Sam is equally careless of his language and cash, he will
excuse a crooked beginning and accept a straight ending. Contemplating
my crooked dream I confess I waked up without a straight idea in my
head. The fact was, I was waked up with such an incomprehensible
jingling, ringing, rumbling, and gonging, that I mistook its purport,
and thought the Russians were bombarding the house. I was about
looking out of the window to see if the White House was all safe, when
a negro with a countenance blacker than vengeance protruded his fizzy
head into the door, and without a morsel of knocking commenced