XXI
TWO RENEGADES
IN THE Gate City of the South the Confederate Veterans were reuniting; and I stood to see them march, beneath the tangled flags of the great conflict, to the hall of their oratory and commemoration.
While the irregular and halting line was passing I made onslaught upon it and dragged forth from the ranks my friend Barnard O’Keefe, who had no right to be there. For he was a Northerner born and bred; and what should he be doing hallooing for the Stars and Bars among those gray and moribund veterans? And why should he be trudging, with his shining, martial, humorous, broad face, among those warriors of a previous and alien generation?
I say I dragged him forth, and held him till the last hickory leg and waving goatee had stumbled past. And then I hustled him out of the crowd into a cool interior; for the Gate City was stirred that day, and the hand-organs wisely eliminated “Marching Through Georgia” from their repertories.
“Now, what deviltry are you up to?” I asked of O’Keefe when there were a table and things in glasses between us.
