What a frank, generous, tender-hearted fellow he is: happy as a boy;
hospitable to the verge of beggary; enthusiastic as he is visionary;
simple as he is genuine. A Virginian of good birth, fair education,
and limited knowledge of the world and of men, proud of his ancestry,
proud of his State, and proud of himself; believing in states' rights,
slavery, and the Confederacy; and away down in the bottom of his soul
still clinging to the belief that the poor white trash of the earth
includes about everybody outside of Fairfax County.

With these antecedents it is easy to see that his "reconstruction" is
as hopeless as that of the famous Greek frieze, outwardly whole andyet
always a patchwork. So he chafes continually under what he believes
to be the tyranny and despotism of an undefined autocracy, which, in
a general way, he calls "the Government," but which really refers to
the distribution of certain local offices in his own immediate vicinity.

When he hands you his card it bears this unabridged inscription:--

Colonel George Fairfax Carter,
of Carter Hall,
Cartersville, Virginia.

He omits "United States of America," simply because it would add nothing
to his identity or his dignity.

* * * * *

"There's Fitz," said the colonel as a sharp double knock sounded at
the outer gate; and the next instant a stout, thick-set, round-faced
man of forty, with merry, bead-like eyes protected by big-bowed