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 stirring 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. O'Keefe wiped his heated face and instigated a commotion among the floating ice in his glass before he chose to answer.
"I am assisting at the wake," said he, "of the only nation on earth that ever did me a good turn. As one gentleman to another, I am ratifying and celebrating the foreign policy of the late Jefferson Davis, as fine a statesman as ever settled the financial question of a country. Equal ratio—that was his platform—a barrel of money for a barrel of flour—a pair of $20 bills for a pair of boots—a hatful of currency for a new hat—say, ain't that simple compared with W. J. B. s little old oxidized plank?"
"What talk is this?" I asked. "Your financial digression is merely a subterfuge. Why are you marching in the ranks of the Confederate Veterans?"
"Because, my lad," answered O'Keefe, "the Confederate government in its might and power interposed to protect and defend Barnard O'Keefe against immediate and dangerous assassination at the hands of a bloodthirsty foreign country, after the United States of America had overruled his appeal for protection and had instructed Private Secretary Cortelyou
