The "Rev. Capt. Doc, M.D.," as he was wont, on occasion, to call himself--why drag in a personal name among titles in themselves sufficiently distinguishing?--was by common consent the leading man with a certain under-population along the coast. And when, three months before, he had harangued them as to the patriot's duty of home defence, there was not a worthy incapable present but enthusiastically enlisted. The tension of the times forbade perception of the ludicrous. For three months the "Riffraffs"--so they proudly called themselves--rheumatic, deaf, palsied, halt, lame, and one or two nearly blind, had represented "the cause," "the standing army," "le grand militaire," to the inflammable imaginations of this handful of simple rural people of the lower coast. Of the nine "odds and ends of old cannon" which Captain Doc had been able to collect, it was said that but one would carry a ball. Certainly, of the remaining seven, one was of wood, an ancient gunsmith's sign, and another a gilded papier-mache affair of a former Mystick Krewe. Still, these answered for drill purposes, and would be replaced by genuine guns when possible. They were quite as good for everything excepting a battle, and in that case, of course, it would be a simple thing "to seize the enemy's guns" and use them. When the Riffraffs had paraded up and down the river road no one had smiled, and if anybody realized that their captain wore the gorgeous pompon of a drum-major, its fitness was not questioned. It was becoming to him. It corresponded to his lordly strut, and was in keeping with the stentorian tones that shouted "Halt!" or "Avance!" Captain Doc appealed to Americans and creoles alike, and the Riffraffs marched quite as often to the stirring measures of "La Marseillaise" as to "The Bonny Blue Flag." Ever since the first guns at the forts, the good captain had been disporting himself in full feather. He was "ready for the enemy." His was a pleasing figure, and even inspiring as a picturesque embodiment of patriotic zeal; but when this afternoon the Riffraffs had planted their artillery along the levee front, while the little captain rallied them to "prepare to die by their guns," it was a different matter. The company, loyal to a man, had responded with a shout, the blacksmith, to whose deaf ears his anvil had been silent for twenty years, throwing up his hat with the rest, while the epileptic who manned the papier-mache gun was observed to scream the loudest. Suddenly a woman, catching the peril of the situation, shrieked: "They're going to fire on the gunboats! We'll all be killed." Another caught the cry, and another. A mad panic ensued; women with babies in their arms gathered about Captain Doc, entreating him, with tears and cries, to desist. But for once the tender old man, whose old boast had been that one tear from a woman's eyes "tore his heart open," was deaf to all entreaty.