Replies

The Siege of Vicksburg – 1, 5-7
The Invasion of the North – 2
The President’s Letter – 2
The Lounger – 2-3
Humors of the Day – 3-4
Domestic Intelligence – 4
Foreign News – 4
Army of the Potomac – 6, 10-11
“Sensation” – 6-7
French Dead (and Gone) Shots – 7-8
Map of Maryland, and Parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia, Showing the Present Theatre of the War – 9
Boys Run Wild – 12
Lawrence’s Enlistment – 13-14
“Very Hard Cash,” by Charles Reade, Ch. XV – 12-14
The Siege of Port Hudson – 14-16
A Letter – 14
One Kind of Patriotism – 19

THE two supple dusky forms went whirling so fast, there was no grasping them to part them. But presently the negro seized the Hindoo by the throat; the Hindoo just pricked him in the arm with his knife, and the next moment his own head was driven against the side of the cabin with a stunning crack, and there he was, pinned, and wriggling, and bluish with fright, whereas the other swart face close against his was dark-grey with rage, and its two fireballs of eyes rolled fearfully, as none but African eyes can roll.

Fullalove pacified him by voice and touch; he withdrew his iron grasp with sullen and lingering reluctance, and glared like a disappointed mastiff: The cabin was now full, and Sharpe was for putting both the blacks in irons. No splitter of hairs was he. But Fullalove suggested there might be a moral distinction between things that looked equally dark to the eye.

“Well, then, speak quick, both of you,” said Sharpe, “or I'll lay ye both by the heels. Ye black scoundrels, what business have you in the captain's cabin, kicking up the devil's delight?”

Thus threatened, Vespasian panted out his tale; he had discovered this n_____, as he persisted in calling the Hindoo, eternally prowling about the good captain's door, and asking stupid questions: he had watched him, and, on the surgeon coming out with the good news that the captain was better, in had crawled “this yar abominable egotisk.” And he raised a ponderous fist to point the polysyllables: with this aid the sarcasm would doubtless have been crushing; but Fullalove hung on the sable orator's arm, and told him drily to try and speak without gesticulating. “The darned old cuss,” said Vespasian, with a pathetic sigh at not being let hit him. He resumed and told how he had followed the Hindoo stealthily, and found him with a knife uplifted over the captain—a tremor ran through all present—robbing him. At this a loud murmur filled the room; a very ugly one, the sort of snarl with which dogs fly at dogs' throats with their teeth, and men fly at men's throats with a cord.

Something tells me Charles Reade's Very Hard Cash needs some real changes before it becomes a major motion picture.