Plunging one hand into his shirt-bosom, and pulling forth the precious wad of paper, Battle Jimmie raised the other in salute. “General McClellan,” he said, “Dad told me to give you this. He says a whole lot depends on it. Read it. It’s more interesting, maybe, than it sounds. Read it!” CHAPTER XXXI JIMMIE AND THE GENERALS The two men had spun about from the window as the small human whirlwind burst into the room. Jimmie’s first words had been launched at McClellan with almost incoherent velocity. The army of the Potomac’s commander frowned in annoyed perplexity at the disheveled little apparition and the almost shouted address. Hooker, on the contrary, stared for an instant, then burst into a great guffaw. The next moment the door burst open again. In rushed the military secretary, very purple of face. Behind him was the stomach-smitten sentinel, his visage still greenish and pain-twisted from the blow. “General!” spluttered the secretary. “I--this--” “What does this mean?” sternly demanded McClellan, finding his voice. The sentinel, at a gesture from the secretary, collared the boy again and started to carry him bodily from the room. “Wait, you!” shrilled Jimmie. “You lemme go! There’s more to my message. I forgot. Dad told me to tell--” “Shut up, you crazy little scarecrow!” growled the sentinel under his breath, bestowing a vicious shake which the boy promptly resented by an excruciating kick on his captor’s shins. “Dad told me to tell you how we came to find the paper,” finished Jimmie loudly. “We picked it up on a hill out--” The sentinel had him at the door of the room by this time, the empurpled secretary bringing up the rear. McClellan, into whose hand Jimmie had thrust the crumpled and far from clean bunch of paper, let the document drop to the floor. “Wait!” yelled the boy in despair. “A lot depends on it. Dad--” “The brat is crazy,” declared the secretary. “He came to the house here just now and said he was a--” “Dad told me,” squealed Jimmie, clinging to the door-jamb and hanging on for dear life as the sentinel sought to yank him free, “that I must--” “Shut up!” exhorted the sentry. “And let go there!” “A thousand apologies, sir,” went on the secretary to McClellan, “for my allowing this intrusion upon your conference. It was not my fault, nor”--generously--“was it this sentinel’s. I saw the boy assault him. He--” “General McClellan!” howled Jimmie. “Pick up that paper and _read_ it! Dad says it--” “The boy,” babbled on the secretary to all concerned, “was riding a horse with a ‘C. S. A.’ cavalry saddle. He--” “Pick it up and _read_ it!” wailed Jimmie again, feeling his hold on the door-jamb slacken under the mighty yanking of the sentinel. The soldier loosened one tugging hand from Jimmie’s shoulder long enough to administer a sound cuff on the lad’s ear. Jimmie retaliated this time by flinging his head back sharply and with the crown of it catching the sentry a grievous whack on the chin.