"If you mean it, why don't you say it? Call things by their right names. The people of the South are not all rebels. Why, confound it, Farragut is a Southerner; so is General Anderson; so are a hundred men, who have distinguished themselves in putting down treason. It's an insult to these men to talk about the people of the South as rebels." "I agree with you, Commodore Portington, and what I said was only a form of expression." "It's a very bad form of expression. Why, man, you are a Southerner yourself." "I am; and I suppose that is what makes me so proud of the good fighting the people of the South--I mean the rebels--have done. We can't help respecting men who have behaved with so much gallantry." "Can't we?" exclaimed the commodore, with a sneer so wholesome and honest, that Lieutenant Pillgrim withered under it. "I can help it. I have no respect for rebels and traitors under any circumstances." "Nor I, as rebels and traitors," replied Pillgrim, mildly. "As rebels and traitors! I don't like these fine-spun distinctions. If a man is a traitor, call him so, and swing him up on the fore-yard arm, where he belongs." "You are willing to acknowledge that the rebels have fought well in this war?" added the lieutenant. "They have fought well: I don't deny it." "And you appreciate gallant conduct?" "That depends on the cause. No, sir! I don't appreciate gallant conduct on the part of rebels and traitors. It is not gallant conduct; and the better they fight, the more wicked they are." "I can hardly take your view of the case." "Can't you? The best fighting I ever saw in my life was on the deck of a pirate ship. The black-hearted villains fought like demons. Not a man of them would yield the breadth of a hair. We had to cut them down like dogs. Is piracy respectable because these men fought well?" "Certainly not; but the bravery of such men--" "Nonsense! I know what you are going to say; but you can't separate the pirate from his piracy, nor the traitor from his treason," replied the commodore, warmly. "The other day I saw a little dirty urchin fighting with his mother. The young cub had run away, I suppose, and the woman was dragging him back to the house. He was not more than six years old, but he displayed a power of resistance which rather astonished me. He kicked, bit, scratched, and yelled like a young tiger. He called his mother everything but a lady. The poor woman tugged at him with all her strength, but the little rascal was almost a match for her. I wanted to take him by the nape of the neck, and shake the ugly out of him: nothing but my fixed principles of neutrality prevented me from doing so. I suppose, Mr. Pillgrim, you would have sympathized with the brat, because he fought bravely." "Hardly," replied the lieutenant, laughing at the simile. "But he fought like a tiger, and displayed no mean strategy in his rebellious warfare. Of course he was worthy of your admiration," sneered the commodore.