"'Yes, sir,' said I, 'I have a bad habit of marking when I'm talking. I always done it, even when I was a child. My mother used to often slap me for spoiling the walls, but she could never break me of it.' "'Humph,' said he, not at all satisfied with my story, unt looking at the scratches harder than ever. 'Who are you, unt what are you doing here?' "I told him my story about buying Mexican silver dollars, unt showed him a lot of the dollars I'd bought. "'Your story ain't reasonable,' said he. 'You haven't done bizniss enough to pay you for all the time you've spent around the army. I'll put you under guard till I can look into your case.' "He called to the Sergeant of the Guard, unt ordered him to take charge of me. The Sergeant was that same dirty loafer. Bob Smiles, that I had the trouble with by Wilson's Creek. He kicked me unt pounded me, unt put me on my horse, with my hands tied behind me, unt my feet tied under the horse's belly. I was almost dead by night, when we reached Headquarters. They gave me something to{58} eat, unt I laid down on the floor of the cabin, wishing I was Pontius Pilate, so that I could crucify every man in the Southern Confedrisy, especially Bob Smiles. An hour or two later I heard Bob Smiles swearing again." [Illustration: THE SPY IN CUSTODY. 58] "'Make out the names of all the prisoners I have,' he was saying, 'with where they belong unt the charges against them. I can't. Do they take me for a counter-jumping clerk? I didn't come into the army to be a white-faced bookkeeper, I sprained{59} my thumb the other day, unt I can't write even a Httle bit. What am I to do?' "That was all moonshine about his spraining his thumb. He vas ignorant as a jackass. If he had 40 thumbs he couldn't write even his own name so's anybody could read it. "'I don't believe these's a man in a mile of here that can make out such a list,' he went on. They're all a set of hominy-eating blockheads. Perhaps that hook-nosed Jew might. He's the man. I'll make him do it, or break his swindling head.' "He come in, kicked me, unt made me get up, unt then took me out unt set me down at a table, where he had paper, pen unt ink, unt ordered me to take down the names of the prisoners as he brought them up. He'd look over my shoulder as I wrote, as if he was reading what I set down, but I knowed that he couldn't make out a letter. I was tempted to write all sorts of things about him, but I didn't, for I was in enough trouble already. When I come to my own name, he said: "'Make de charge a spy, a thief, unt a Dutch traitor to the Southern Confedrisy.' "I just wrote: 'Levi Rosenbaum, Memphis, Tenn. Merchant. No charge.' "He scowled very wisely at it, unt pretended to read it, unt said: "'It's lucky for you that you wrote it just as I told you. I'd 'a' broke every bone in your body if you hadn't.' "I'd just got done when an officer come down from Headquarters for it. He looked it over unt said: "'Who made this out?'