"_Paymaster_ Winters, if you please" replied Archie, with mock
dignity.

"How came you here? What are you doing? Got any money?" hurriedly
inquired Frank.

"Got plenty of funds," replied his cousin. "But I say, Frank, how long
has this fighting been going on?"

"Every day for the last week."

Archie shrugged his shoulders, and looked blank.

"I guess I had better go back to Cairo," said he; "these rebels, I hear,
shoot very carelessly. Just before we came alongside here, I was
standing on the deck of the dispatch-boat, and some fellow cracked away
at me, sending the bullet altogether too close to my head for comfort."

"Oh, that's nothing, so long as he didn't hit you. You'll get used to
that before you have been here a week. But, Archie, are you really
ordered to this vessel?"

Archie at once produced his orders, and, sure enough, he was an acting
assistant paymaster, and ordered to "report to the commanding officer of
the U. S. S. Boxer for duty on board that vessel."

During the two years that Archie had been in the fleet-paymaster's
office he had, by strict attention to his duties, worked his way up from
"writer" to corresponding clerk. He had had ample opportunity to learn
the duties of paymaster, and one day he suddenly took it into his head