When supper-time arrived the crowd was so great that checks were issued for two tables, an hour apart. When the captain of the boat and the ranking officer of the G. A. R. filed in, followed by a hungry mob, a lone man was discovered seated at a table nearest the galley where the dishes were hottest and best served. It was Sam. He had come in through the pantry, and the head steward--Sam had known him for years, nearly as long as he had known the clerk--had attended to the other details, one of which was a dish of soft-shell crabs, only enough for half a dozen passengers, and which toothsome viands the head steward scratched off the bill of fare the moment they had been swallowed. That night Sam sat up on deck until the moon rose over Middle Ground Light, talking shop to another drummer, and then he started for state-room Number 15 with an upper and lower berth (both Sam's), including a set of curtains for each berth--a chair, a washbowl, life-preserver, and swinging light. On his way to this Oriental boudoir he passed through the saloon. It was occupied by a miscellaneous assortment of human beings--men, women and children in all positions of discomfort--some sprawled out on the stationary sofas, some flat on the carpet, their backs to the panelling; others nodding on the staircase, determined to sit it out until daylight. On the deck below, close against the woodwork, rolled up in their coats, was here and there a veteran. They had slept that way many a time in the old days with the dull sound of a distant battery lulling them to sleep--they rather liked it. The next morning, when the crowd swarmed out to board the train at Fall River, Sam tarried a moment at the now deserted ticket-office, smiled blandly at Billy, and laid a greenback on the sill. "What's the matter, old man, with my holding on to Number 15 till I come back? This boat goes back to New York day after to-morrow, doesn't she?" Billy nodded, picked up a lead-pencil and put a cross against Number 15; then he handed Sam back his change and the key. All that day in Fall River Sam sold cutlery, the ironclads doing service. The next day he went to Boston on a later train than the crowd, and had almost a whole car to himself. The third day he returned to Fall River an hour ahead of the special train carrying the Grand Army, and again with half the car to himself. When the special rolled into the depot and was shunted on to the steamboat dock, it looked, in perspective from where Sam stood, like a tenement-house on a hot Sunday--every window and door stuffed with heads, arms, and legs. Sam studied the mob for a few minutes, felt in his "pants" pocket for his key, gave it one or two loving pats with his fingers, and took a turn up the dock where it was cooler and where the human avalanche wouldn't run over him.