a sovereign on that from a yeoman. And, by the way," he says, "you've disappointed me groom pretty bad."
' " Where does your groom come in?" I said.
' " Oh, he was the yeoman. He's a dam poor groom," says my captain, " but he's a way-up barrister when he's at home. He's been running around the camp with his tongue out, waiting for the chance of defending you at the court-martial."
' "What court-martial?" I says.
' "On you as a deserter from the Artillery. You'd have had a good run for your money. Anyway, you'd never have been hung after the way you worked your gun. Deserter ten times over," he says, "I'd have stuck out for shooting you like a gentleman."
' Well, Sir, right there it struck me at the pit of my stomach—sort of sickish, sweetish feeling—that my position needed regularising pretty bad. I ought to have been a naturalised burgher of a year's standing ; but Ohio's my State, and I wouldn't have gone back on her for a desertful of Dutchmen. That and my enthoosiasm as an inventor had led me to the existing crisis; but I couldn't expect this Captain Mankeltow to regard the proposition that way. There I sat, the rankest breed of unreconstructed American citizen, caught red-handed squirting hell at the British Army for months on end. I tell you, Sir, I wished I was in Cincinnatah that summer evening. I'd have compromised on Brooklyn.
' "What d'you do about aliens?" I said, and
