and folding cots. I wanted Colonel Rockingham to be comfortable; and I hoped after he gave up the ten thousand dollars he would give me and Caligula as good a name for gentlemen and entertainers as the Greek man did the friend of his that made the United States his bill collector against Africa.
When the goods came down from Atlanta, we hired a wagon, moved them up on the little mountain, and established camp. And then we laid for the colonel.
We caught him one morning about two miles out from Mountain Valley, on his way to look after some of his burnt umber farm land. He was an elegant old gentleman, as thin and tall as a trout rod, with frazzled shirt-cuffs and specs on a black string. We explained to him, brief and easy, what we wanted; and Caligula showed him, careless, the handle of his forty-five under his coat.
“What?” says Colonel Rockingham. “Bandits in Perry County, Georgia! I shall see that the board of immigration and public improvements hears of this!”
“Be so unfoolhardy as to climb into that buggy,” says Caligula, “by order of the board of perforation and public depravity. This is a business meeting, and we’re anxious to adjourn sine qua non.”
We drove Colonel Rockingham over the mountain and up the side of it as far as the buggy could go.
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