"Aha," said the old man, "aha—of course—wouldn’t go to West Point, though the President himself gave him the appointment in my behalf. Aha—Jack—a brooding, dreaming sort of a feller—always mooning around trees and writing poetry. Won’t fight—not a damn one of ’em will. And what a chance to fight you would have now! What a bully scrap we are going to have! Have you heard, suh," he turned, and spoke sharply to me, "have you heard that the Spaniards blew up our battleship the other month, and that we are going to blow hell out of ’em? And they’ve been needing it for two centuries. Ah! If I were only younger, wouldn’t I be in! Imagine it, Goff," he said, turning to him, "imagine me fighting under the old flag again! Didn’t think I’d ever live to see that day when we were charging Banks in the Valley. Ah, ’twas a family scrap—only a family fight—like old man Tully and wife—have to fight a little at home now and then, so they’d love each other more when they made up. Ah, suh, I’d give this farm to be your age again, and a chance to fight under the old flag once more. Joe Wheeler wrote me the other day that President McKinley would make me a Brigadier, if I’d go in. By gad, suh, I sat down, and shed tears to think I was too old!" He was silent awhile; then, "Ha, ha, but I read in the paper to-day that the Spanish Prime Minister is out in a statement saying it’ll be easy to whip us, because we’re divided North and South, and that the Southern Confederacy will arise again! He is right. We have already arisen. I see in every Southern State ten times more have volunteered than their quota calls for. Yes, we’ll arise, and will help McKinley whip hell out of them!" He stamped his wooden leg on the floor. "Now, Braxton Bragg—ah, he’s in it. Do you know, suh, that he’s a Captain in the First Tennessee, and they are preparing now to go to the Philippines? Ah, what a chance, what a chance you had, suh! And what do you say you did in Germany?" "I studied forestry and farming, sir," I said, flushing hot under his words, "and with it I took two years’ training in the military school at Berlin, taking instructions up to the rank of captain in the Emperor’s Guards."