There were few who greeted him as he pushed his way to the post-office window, and called for his mail. The postmaster handed out to him two papers and a letter. He tore off the end of the envelope, drew out the scrap of paper which had been inclosed, and looked at it. Then his face turned red with anger. Some mischievous, malicious busybody had sent him an anonymous epistle: a crudely penciled picture, a libelous scrawl beneath it, the whole a coarse thrust at his alleged disloyalty. If this had been intended as a joke, he could not have taken it as such. But it was no joke. To him, indeed, it was simply a coarse, brutal, wanton attack on his manhood and patriotism. It started the fires of rage burning with sevenfold heat in his heart. He lifted his blazing eyes to find half the people in the little room staring at him, some wonderingly, some exultingly. Out by the doorway there was a suppressed chuckle. No one spoke. If Bannister had been content to hold his peace, there would have been no trouble. But he could not do that. Only death could have sealed his lips in that moment. He held up the coarse cartoon, with its equally coarse inscription, for the crowd to look at. Then he said, speaking deliberately:-- “I observe that you have found a new way to fight the battles of your alleged country.” For a moment no one replied. Then, from the farther side of the room came the voice of Sergeant Goodman, home on furlough, wounded. “To whom are you speaking, Rhett Bannister?” And the reply came, hot and swift:-- “To the coward who sent me this work of art; to you who aided and abetted him, and to all of you who take your cue from the Federal government at Washington, and persecute in every mean and malicious way those who do not believe in wholesale murder in the South and who are not afraid to say so in the North.” “I don’t know anything about your letter and picture, Bannister,” said the sergeant, “but we who are doing the fighting believe in the Federal government at Washington, we believe that we are carrying on a just war, and we believe that if it were not for you and the rest of your backbiting, disloyal, copperhead crew here in the North, who are giving aid and sympathy to the rebels of the South, we would have had this war ended a year ago.” “Give it to him, sergeant!” cried an enthusiastic listener; “let him understand that it ain’t healthy for traitors around here.” “I’m no traitor,” responded Bannister hotly. “I think as much of my country as you do of yours. I’ll give more to-day, in proportion to my means, to secure an honorable peace between North and South than any other man in this room.”