But this was not all. There was still another coincidence. There was that in my correspondent’s letter which revealed to me a fact of which he was apparently unconscious; namely, that this Reverend Lansing Burroughs was an old college mate of my own, whom I had not seen or heard from for sixteen years. Such a coincidence was altogether natural and proper, however, growing as it did out of matters connected with Russell. I had some further correspondence with the Reverend Mr. Burroughs, and finally we met by appointment and went to Mouquin’s for luncheon and to compare notes. A careful analysis of dates proved beyond doubt that _his_ Russell was _my_ Russell. But our experiences were of a very different sort. Mr. Burroughs had never once had a meeting with the mysterious man which did not bring calamity of some sort upon himself. So far as I was concerned, no ill beyond annoyance and embarrassment had ever come of my acquaintance with him. The Reverend Mr. Burroughs declares to me his firm conviction that the quiet, singularly shy, well-behaved, modest gentleman, so unusually gifted, especially in the way of a phenomenal genius for lying, is in plain terms THE DEVIL. As to this, Mr. Burroughs is by profession an expert, and I am not. I therefore venture no opinion. I merely continue to ask, “Who is Russell?” “JUANITA” I was on guard one night in the autumn of 1861. It was only ordinary camp guard and not picket duty. We had fallen back from the line of Mason’s and Munson’s hills, and were camped well in the rear of Fairfax Court House, which now constituted our most advanced outpost. The army were fortified at Centreville. We had got tired of waiting for McClellan to make the advance for which we were so eagerly ready. We were evidently preparing to go into winter quarters. We of Stuart’s cavalry were still posted six or eight miles in advance of the main army; but after our summer, passed twenty miles in front, we felt snug and comfortable at “Camp Cooper.” Nevertheless, when I saw three rockets--red, white, and blue--go up far to the front, it occurred to me that the fact might mean something. At any rate, I was lonely on post. I had sung “Juanita” under my breath,--and that it wasn’t permitted to sing out loud on post was probably a rule not made with any invidious reference to my voice, though it might well have been,--I say I had sung “Juanita” under my breath till I had exhausted the capabilities of entertainment that reside in that tender musical composition. So, for the sake of diversion, if for nothing else, I called out: “Corporal of the guard, post number six.” When the corporal came and I reported what I had seen, he moodily growled something about there being no orders to “report on Yankee fireworks.” Nevertheless, he communicated my report to higher authority. Fifteen minutes later a hurried messenger came, summoning me at once to General Stuart’s headquarters, half a mile in front.