Cross-Roads, became almost professionally placid and disciplined, and the lad was in a sort of military seventh heaven, trotting about with orders and despatches, recognized and passed without check at almost all the posts of the main guards, where even officers below certain grades had to show their permits, welcomed at every regimental camp for the news and gossip he could bring,--ay, and it must be owned, for items much more stimulating than even the latest rumors from the War Department, for Shorty was many a time the bearer of despatches to McClellan's head-quarters or the office of some high dignitary in the city, and his saddle-bags were never inspected by provost-marshals and patrols, and, now that the sutlers were forbidden to sell the fiery liquids of the first weeks of the war, many a flask of forbidden "commissary" found its way to some favored tent among the brigade lines, and in return, when Sergeant This or Corporal That was out on picket, the lad was sure of friends at court when he strove for a peep outside the lines, and one of his absorbing crazes was to ascertain what might be going on around that mysterious hamlet, nearly two miles out there in the lovely Virginia slopes beyond the pickets. The fact is that Shorty was consumed with ambition to "do something" like Snipe. He envied his former chum the distinction of that capture of Lieutenant Grayson infinitely more than he envied "Little Mac" the command of the army. Just to think that the first Confederate officer caught in front of Washington should turn out to be a first cousin of the very Graysons who were with them at school! Just to think that it should be Snipe of all others--Snipe, a First Latin boy--to make the capture! Just to think that Snipe should have been all through Bull Run, while he, Shorty, was far to the rear where he could only hear the thunder of the guns and the tales of the stragglers! Just to think that the old men in the reorganized New-Englanders declared that Snipe was the best soldier in the ranks of Company "C" if he was the youngest!--Snipe who couldn't shoot a gun six months ago without shutting his eyes, and who would rather fish all day or figure out equations than follow the band of the Seventh itself! Just to think that the old colonel's written report of Bull Run should include among the few names of those deserving especial credit and commendation that of Corporal George Lawton, Company "C," "who sacrificed himself in the heroic effort to save Major Stark from death or capture, and was last seen fighting hard over his prostrate body,"--Snipe who used to turn sick at sight of a fist fight, even though he was the "bulliest" first baseman the Uncas ever had.