_Veteran._ "No, sir. I'll tell you all about it. You see when the Massachusetts regiments passed through Baltimore, the brig that I sailed on had just returned from a voyage to Rio, and we were unloading in Smith's dock, near Centre Market. The soldiers had disembarked from the cars at the Philadelphia depot, and were marching along Pratt Street, towards the Washington station, when the attack was made on them. As I looked from the deck of the brig I saw the old flag pushing and dodging along the street, with a shower of stones and bricks flying around it, and I heard the sound of pistol-shots and the hissing and hooting of the mob. I happened to turn around, and I saw the same colors proudly flapping in the wind from the mast head, and I tell you it was too much for me--I couldn't stand it. I went to the captain, almost choking, and I told him I wanted an order for my pay; I was going home. I was the second mate of the brig; and the captain was a little wrathy at the idea, for he wanted me to stay and help him superintend the unloading of that part of the cargo that was to be left on the dock, before dropping down to Fell's Point the next day. I told him I must leave; and as he had no further hold on me, he had to give me the order. The owners were surprised, too; but after some talk they paid me, and I went home to the old woman. She said, 'You look excited; what's the matter with you?' 'Well,' said I, 'I am going to enlist in the Union army, and try and help to pay these fellows that fired on the American colors in Pratt Street to-day, back in their own coin.' 'That's right,' said she; 'I wish they'd let me carry a gun, and I'd go with you.' And I wished for once in my life that Mollie was a boy; for I might have made a drummer out of her, anyway, for she was too small for anything else. Well, you know;--but I hope I'm not tiring you with my long yarn, sir?" _Mr. Mack._ "No; go on with it." _Veteran._ "They were not raising any regiments in Maryland; and I fell in with a Hoosier, who was going home to Madison to enlist, and I promised him ten dollars if he would get me past the surgeons. I'm sixty-six years old; and you know I was too old for them, because they were more particular in the early part of the war than they were later. Well, when we got to Madison, to make matters sure, I went and got my hair dyed; and as luck would have it, the recruiting officers were a little drunk, and I passed without any difficulty, though one of them asked me how old I was, and I told them a lie, God forgive me, that I was thirty-nine years old! I went into the Army of the Cumberland, and at Chickamauga a shell burst near me, and I was knocked up in the way you see." _Mr. Mack._ "You have served with General Howard?" [Illustration: McWATTERS AND THE VETERAN.]