"'Have you a recommendation, Terence?'

"'A ricommindation is it, sorr? Sure I have nothing agin Misther Dalton,
though he moightn't be knowing just the respict the likes of a
first-class garthener is entitled to.'"

He did not laugh. He seldom does, it seems, at his own stories. But I
could not help laughing over the "ricommindation" I had given the
General. He knew that I was embarrassed, and said kindly:-- "Now tell me
something about 'Uncle Billy's Bummers.' I hear that they have a most
effectual way of tearing up railroads."

I told him of Poe's contrivance of the hook and chain, and how the
heaviest rails were easily overturned with it, and how the ties were
piled and fired and the rails twisted out of shape. The President
listened to every word with intense interest.

"By Jing!" he exclaimed, "we have got a general. Caesar burnt his bridges
behind him, but Sherman burns his rails. Now tell me some more."

He helped me along by asking questions. Then I began to tell him how the
negroes had flocked into our camps, and how simply and plainly the
General had talked to them, advising them against violence of any kind,
and explaining to them that "Freedom" meant only the liberty to earn
their own living in their own way, and not freedom from work.

"We have got a general, sure enough," he cried. "He talks to them
plainly, does he, so that they understand? I say to you, Brice," he went
on earnestly, "the importance of plain talk can't be overestimated. Any