"It certainly was good cloth, and cheap," admitted the Deacon. "What in the world are you doin' down here in them clothes?" "I'm doing just what these men are doing here in their cloze," answered Rosenbaum. "I'm trying to serve the country. I'm doing it different from them, because I'm built different from them. I hope I'm doing it well. But I'm awfully hungry. Got anything to eat? Just a cup of coffee and a cracker? Don't care for any pork." "Yes, we'll give you something to eat," said Shorty. "I think there's some of our chicken left. You'll find that good." "How did you cook that?" said Rosenbaum, looking at the tempting morsel suspiciously. Shorty explained.{23} "Thanks; I can't eat it," said Rosenbaum with a sigh. "It ain't kosher." "What the devil's that?" asked Shorty. "It's my religion. I can't explain. Send for the Officer of the Guard to take me to Headquarters," answered Rosenbaum, sipping his coffee. CHAPTER II. ROSENBAUM, THE SPY THE JEW TELLS THE THRILLING STORY OF HIS ADVENTURE. THE Officer of the Guard was a long time in coming, and Mr. Rosenbaum grew quite chatty and communicative, as they sat around the bright fire of cedar logs and smoked. "Yes," he said, "I have been in the secret service ever since the beginning of the war--in fact, before the war, for I began getting news for Frank Blair in the Winter before the war. They say Jews have no patriotism. That's a lie. Why should they have no patriotism for countries where they were treated like dogs? In Germany, where I was born, they treated us worse than dogs. They made us live in a little, nasty, pig-pen of an alley; we had to go in at sundown, unt stay there; we had to wear a different cloze from other folks, unt we didn't dare to say our souls were our own to any dirty loafer that insulted us. "Here we are treated like men, unt why shouldn't we help to keep the country from breaking up? Jews ought to do more than anybody else, unt I made up my mind from the very first that I was going to do all that I could. The Generals have told me that I could do much better for the country in the secret service than as a soldier; they could get plenty of soldiers unt but few spies."{25} "Now you're shoutin'," said Shorty. "They kin git me to soldier as long as the war lasts, for the askin', but I wouldn't be a spy 10 minutes for a corn-basket full o' greenbacks. I have too much regard for my neck. I need it in my business." "You a spy," said Si derisively. "You couldn't spy for sour apples. Them big feet o' your'n 'd give you dead away to anybody that'd ever seen you before." "Spyin' isn't the business that any straightfor'rd man,"--the Deacon began to say in tones of cold disapproval, and then he bethought him of courtesy to the stranger, and changed hastily--"that I'd like to do. It's entirely too resky."