There were four rooms. One of them was the ladies’ reception room and parlor. It had only four beds. The others had each two or three bedsteads, and about eight beds spread on the bare floor. In each was a smoky wood fire. In the passage way was the office, where you paid your three dollars for supper, lodging, and breakfast, in advance. And to the rear, in a separate building, was the negro kitchen, in which, to do the house justice, were served the best meals I have found in the country towns of these States. It may be interesting to know what a Mississippi hotel, in the interior, is like; the above is a faithful statement. * * * * * Adversity breaks down reserve. We were all in the Snagsby House together. And so we became social. There was no candle in the room. It has been observed that this increases sociability. “You’re from Washington, I see from the register. Is there much change there in the last five years?” I mentioned a few of the more prominent improvements the Yankees had wrought. “What do they think there of Joe Johnston’s great Express Company? Surely the Government won’t interfere with it?” “Possibly not. Indeed, I fancy neither the Government nor the public think very much about it. But I have heard express men suggest that General Johnston was not accustomed to close financial calculations, and not likely, therefore, to make the best manager for a struggling enterprise.” “They were fools, then, who hadn’t sense enough to understand General Johnston. He’s the ablest man in the country, and everybody but a blockhead knows it.” I looked around in some little surprise. The tone indicated that the speaker did not mean to be personally rude, though the language certainly grazed the border of politeness. In the dim firelight I made out a soldierly-looking personage with an empty coat sleeve. When he went to the window, a moment later, some one whispered, “That’s General Loring, a classmate of Joe Johnston’s, and one of his Division Generals.” The conversation that followed soon disclosed Major A. D. Banks, an officer of Joe Johnston’s staff, (at one time Postmaster of the House at Washington, and at another, for a short period, editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer,) as another member of a group that was filled out by a Government cotton agent and half-a-dozen Rebel planters. The first important question with all these Southern gentlemen was, “Will the Southern members get in?” “Possibly, during the winter,” I replied, “on the reception by the Government of adequate guarantees for the future, but certainly not at the organization.” “Why not at the organization?” “Because, Mr. McPherson, the Clerk of the House, construes the law governing his action in making up the roll so as to preclude him from inserting their names.” “But the tremendous pressure we can bring to bear,” suggested an old Washington stager, “can give him new ideas as to the possible construction of the law.”