One day the Colonel related in confidence to the Doctor a circumstance which had given him peculiar disgust. The Governor having permitted him to nominate his own Lieutenant-Colonel, he had selected an ex-officer of a three months' regiment who had shown tactical knowledge, and gallantry. The field position of Major he had finally resolved to demand for Colburne. Hence an interview, and an unpleasant one, with the chief magistrate of Barataria. "Governor," said Carter, "I want that majority for a particular friend of mine, the best officer in the regiment and the best man for the place that I know in the State." The Governor was in his little office reclining in a high-backed oaken chair, and toasting his feet at a fire. He was a tall, thin, stooping gentleman, slow in gait because feeble in health, with a benign dignity of manner and an unvarying amiability of countenance. His eyes were a pale blue, his hair a light chestnut slightly silvered by fifty years, his complexion had once been freckled and was still fair, his smile was frequent and conciliatory. Like President Lincoln he sprang from the plain people, who were to conquer in this war, and like him he was capable of intellectual and moral growth in proportion to enlargement of his sphere of action. A modest, gentle-tempered, obliging man, patriotic in every impulse, devout in the severe piety of New England, distinguished for personal honor and private virtues, he was in the main a credit to the State which had selected him for its loftiest dignity. He had risen from his chair and saluted the Colonel with marked respect. Although he did not like his moral ways, he valued him highly for his professional ability and courage, and was proud to have him in command of a Baratarian regiment. To his shy spirit this aristocratic and martial personage was in fact a rather imposing phenomenon. Carter had a fearful eye; by turns audaciously haughty and insolently quizzical; and on this occasion the Governor felt himself more than usually discomposed under its wide open, steady, confident stare. He seemed even a little tremulous as he took his seat; he dreaded to disagree with the representative of West Point brahminism; and yet he knew that he must. "Captain Colburne." "Oh--Captain Colburne," hesitated the Governor. "I agree with you, Colonel, in all that you say of him. I hope that there will be an opportunity yet of pushing him forward. But just now," he continued with a smile that was apologetical and almost penitent, "I don't see that I can give him the majority. I have promised it to Captain Gazaway." "To Gazaway!" exclaimed Carter. A long breath of angry astonishment swelled his broad breast, and his cheek would have flushed if any emotion could have deepened the tint of that dark red bronze. "You don't mean, I hope, Governor, that you are resolved to give the majority of my regiment to that boor."