With Lee in Virginia

Excerpt: ... newsboy who was running along shouting, "News from the war. Defeat of the rebels. Fight in a railway car near Nashville; a minister punishes a border ruffian." "Confound those newspaper fellows!" Vincent muttered to himself as he walked away. "They pick up every scrap of news. I suppose a reporter got hold of some one who was in the car." Turning down a quiet street, he opened the paper and by the light of the lamp read a graphic and minute account of the struggle in the train. "I won't go back to the hotel," he said to himself. "I shall be having reporters to interview me. I shall be expected to give them a history of my whole life; where I was born, and where I went to school, and whether I prefer beef to mutton, and whether I drink beer, and a thousand other things. No; the sooner I am away the better. As to the hotel, I have only had one meal, and they have got the bag with what clothes there are; that will pay them well." Accordingly when he rejoined Dan he told him that they would start at once. "It is the best way, anyhow," he said. "To-morrow, no doubt, the fellow I had the row with will be watching the hotel to see which way I go off, but after once seeing me go to the hotel he will not guess that I shall be starting this evening. What have you got left, Dan?" "I got two dollars, sah." "That makes us quite rich men. We will stop at the first shop we come to and lay in a stock of bread and a pound or two of ham." "And a bottle of rum, sah. Berry wet and cold sleeping out of doors now, sah. Want a little comfort anyhow." "Very well, Dan; I think we can afford that." "Get one for half a dollar, massa. Could not lay out half a dollar better." Half an hour later they had left Nashville behind them, and were tramping along the road toward the east, Dan carrying a bundle in which the provisions were wrapped, and the neck of the bottle of rum sticking out of his pocket. As soon as they were well in the country Vincent changed his clothes for...