"Well, y-e-s! Perhaps we'd as well take him back to town, and if it's all right, maybe we can help him on to Corinth." This was rather more help than I wanted, but there was no help for it. Besides, I reasoned that if I could keep on good terms with this party, I could get information and aid that would be invaluable towards my final escape. Nothing could really suit me much better than actually to be forwarded to Corinth and enlisted in the First Georgia. I knew the ordeal of questioning before that course was determined on would be very trying, but did not despair. If I could only have had some food and a few hours' rest! They conducted me to the largest hotel of the place, where I was received with much ceremony, but they neglected to order dinner. I could have had drink enough, but was too prudent to touch it, even if I had not always been a teetotaler. Soon all the lawyers came in,--Lafayette is a county-seat,--and they all had liberty to question me. For four mortal hours, as I could see by a clock in the room, I conversed with them and answered questions. We talked of everything, and their questions grew more and more pointed. I answered as well as I could, and never let an opportunity pass to put in a question in turn, for it was much easier and less perilous to ask than answer. When I told them I was from Kentucky, they wished to know the county. I told them Fleming. They asked after the county-seat. This also I could give. But when they asked after adjoining counties I was sorely perplexed. One of them said it was singular a man could not bound his own county. I asked how many of them could bound the county we then were in. This question had a double purpose,--to gain time and information. They mentioned several and fell into a dispute, to settle which a map had to be produced. I got a look at it also,--a mere glance, for it was soon out of reach of my eager gaze; but I had seen much. Then they requested a narrative of my journey all the way from Kentucky. This I gave very easily and in great detail as long as it was on ground not accessible to my inquisitors. I told the truth as far as that would not be compromising, and then pieced out with inventions. The time I had spent on the train and in the woods were hardest to arrange for. I had to _invent_ families with whom I had lodged; tell the number of children and servants at each place, with all kinds of particulars. I knew not how many of my auditors might be familiar with the country I was thus fancifully populating, and was careful not to know too much. I plead forgetfulness as often as that plea was plausible, but it would not do to use it too often. I might have refused to answer any question, but this would have been a tacit admission of some kind of guilt,--at least as good as a mob would have required. I might safely use any retorts and sharpness in conversation,--and I did talk with perfect freedom,--but I had the