He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his first idea about cutting my throat had revived.

“Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat,” I explained, trembling; “and — and” — I was very anxious to put this delicately — “and with — the same reason for wanting to borrow a file.

Didn't you hear the cannon last night?”

“Then there was firing!” he said to himself.

“I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that,” I returned, “for we heard it up at home, and that's farther away, and we were shut in besides.”

“Why, see now!” said he. “When a man's