"Dress parade every day?" asked Shorty, despairingly. "Just the same as dress parade every day," answered the Chief Clerk. "Don't want any scarecrows around these Headquarters. We're on dress parade all the time before the people and other soldiers, and must show them how soldiers ought to appear. You'll find a barber-shop and a bootblack around the corner. Make for them at once, and get yourself in shape to represent Headquarters properly." "Don't know but I'd ruther go to the front and dig rifle-pits than to wear paper collars and white gloves every day in the week," soliloquized Shorty, as he walked out on the street. "Don't mind 'em on Sunday, when you kin take 'em off agin when the company's dismissed from parade; but to put 'em on in the mornin' when you git up, and wear 'em till you go to bed at night--O, Jehosephat! Don't think I've got the constitution to stand that sort o' thing. But it's orders, and I'll do it, even if it gives me softenin' o' the brain. Here, you--(beckoning to a bootblack), put a 250-pounder Monitor coat o' polish on them Tennessee River gunboats. Fall in promptly, now." The little darky gave an estimating glance at the capacious cowhides, which had not had a touch of the brush since being drawn from the Quarter master, and then yelled to a companion on the other side of the street: "Hey, Taters, come lend me a spit. I'se got a' army contrack." "Vhat golor off a gravat do you vant?" asked the Jewish vender of haberdashery, who was rapidly amassing a fortune from the soldiers. "Dere's plack, red, kreen, plue--all lofely golors, unt de vinest kint off silk. Yoost de same as Cheneral Krant vears. He puys lods off me. Von't puy off nopody else vhen he gan ket to me. Now, dere's vun dat'll yoost suit your light gomplexion. You gan vear dat on St. Batrick's day." And he picked out one of bright green that would have made Shorty's throat seem in wild revolt against his hair. "Well, I don't know," said Shorty meditatively, pulling over the lot. Then a thought struck him. Taking out the bit of Maria's dress, he said: "Give me something as near as possible the color of that." "Veil, I've kot rid off datt off-golored negdie, dat I fought I nefer vould sell," meditated the Jew, as Shorty left. "I'm ahet yoost a tollar-unt-a-haluf on aggount off dat vild Irishman's kirl. Veil, de kirls ket some fellers into sgrapes, unt helps udders oud." With this philosophical observation the Jew resumed his pleasant work of marking up his prices to better accord with his enlarged views as to the profits he could get off the soldiers. When Shorty returned to Headquarters, neatly shaven and brushed, and took the position of a soldier before the Chief Clerk, that functionary remarked approvingly: "Very good, very good, indeed. You'll be an ornament to Headquarters." And the General, entering the room at that time, added: