"Why, Jedge, this is indeed an honor--and Tom! Of co'se I knew you would come, Tom; but the Jedge I did not expec' until I got yo' telegram. Give me yo' bag, and put yo' umbrella in the corner. "Here Fitz, Major; both of you come in here at once. "Jedge Kerfoot, gentlemen, of the district co'te of Fairfax County. Major Tom Yancey, of the army." The civilities over, extra chairs were brought in, the door again closed, and a council of war was held. Major Yancey's first word--but I must describe Yancey. Imagine a short, oily skinned, perpetually perspiring sort of man of forty, with a decollete collar, a double-breasted waistcoat with glass buttons, and skin-tight light trousers held down to a pair of high-heeled boots by leather straps. The space between his waistband and his waistcoat was made good by certain puckerings of his shirt anxious to escape the thralldom of his suspenders. His paunch began and ended so suddenly that he constantly reminded you of a man who had swallowed a toy balloon. Yancey's first word was an anxious inquiry as to whether he was late, adding, "I came ez soon ez I could settle some business mattahs." He had borrowed his traveling expenses from Kerfoot, who in turn had borrowed them from Miss Nancy, keeping the impending duel carefully concealed from that dear lady, and reading only such part of the colonel's letter as referred to the drawing up of some important papers in which he was to figure as chief executor. "Late? No, Tom," said the colonel; "but the scoundrel has run to cover. We are watchin' his hole." "You sholy don't tell me he's got away, Colonel?" replied Major Yanccy. "What could I do, Yancey? He hasn't had the decency to answer my letter." Yancey, however, on hearing more fully the facts, clung to the hope that the Yankee would yet be smoked out. "I of co'se am not familiar with the code as practiced Nawth--perhaps these delays are permis'ble; but in my county a challenge is a ball, and a man is killed or wounded ez soon ez the ink is dry on the papah. The time he has to live is only a mattah of muddy roads or convenience of seconds. Is there no way in which this can be fixed? I doan't like to return home without an effo't bein' made." The colonel, anxious to place the exact situation before Major Yancey so that he might go back fully assured that everything that a Carter could do had been done, read the copy of the challenge, gave the details of Fitz's efforts to find Klutchem, the repeated visits to his office, and finally the call at his apartments. The major listened attentively, consulted aside with the judge, and then in an authoritative tone, made the more impressive by the decided way with which he hitched up his trousers, said:-- "You have done all that a high-toned Southern gemman could do, Colonel. Yo' honor, suh, is without a stain."