That softened him and we had an old-fashioned, friendly talk about the situation, in which I kept the Douglas Democratic end of it well to the fore. He, too, had been a Douglas Democrat. I soon saw that it was my companion and not myself whom they were after. Presently Colonel Shook, that being the commandant’s name, went into the adjacent stockade and the boys about began to be hearty and sympathetic. I made them a regular Douglas Democratic speech. They brought some “red licker” and I asked for some sugar for a toddy, not failing to cite the familiar Sut Lovingood saying that “there were about seventeen round the door who said they’d take sugar in their’n.” The drink warmed me to my work, making me quicker, if not bolder, in invention. Then the colonel not reappearing as soon as I hoped he would, for all along my fear was the wires, I went to him. “Colonel Shook,” I said, “you need not bother about this friend of mine. He has no real idea of returning to the Confederate service. He is teaching school over here at Beech Grove and engaged to be married to one of the—girls. If you carry him off a prisoner he will be exchanged back into the fighting line, and we make nothing by it. There is a hot luncheon waiting for us at the ——’s. Leave him to me and I will be answerable.” Then I left him. Directly he came out and said: “I may be doing wrong, and don’t feel entirely sure of my ground, but I am going to let you gentlemen go.” We thanked him and made off amid the cheery good-bys of the assembled blue-coats. No lunch for us. We got to our horses, rode away, and that night I was at our rendezvous to tell the tale to those of my comrades who had arrived before me. Colonel Shook and I met after the war at a Grand Army reunion where I was billed to speak and to which he introduced me, relating the incident and saying, among other things: “I do believe that when he told me near Wartrace that day twenty years ago that he was a good Union man he told at least half the truth.” Chapter the Fourth I Go to London—Am Introduced to a Notable Set—Huxley, Spencer, Mill and Tyndall—Artemus Ward Comes to Town—The Savage Club I The fall of Atlanta after a siege of nearly two months was, in the opinion of thoughtful people, the sure precursor of the fall of the doomed Confederacy. I had an affectionate regard for General Hood, but it was my belief that neither he nor any other soldier could save the day, and being out of commission and having no mind for what I conceived aimless campaigning through another winter—especially an advance into Tennessee upon Nashville—I wrote to an old friend of mine, who owned the Montgomery Mail, asking for a job. He answered that if I would come right along and take the editorship of the paper he would make me a present of half of it—a proposal so opportune and tempting that forty-eight hours later saw me in the capital of Alabama.