"What is your brother going to do, Percy? He seems to be arranging something on the lower deck," continued Christy. "I don't know: he didn't tell me any thing at all about it. He wanted to use me: so he soaped me." "If he knew you could steer this steamer, he would have something more for you to do." "Then I won't tell him. All I want is to get away from him. He will make a common soldier of me, and I shall never get out of the ranks." "But you will fight like a brave fellow, and you will be promoted," suggested Christy. "If I get a bullet through my carcass, they will make a corporal of me. Then if I had half my head shot off, they might make a sergeant of me. I am not thirsting for any such glory as that, and I expected to stay with my father at Nassau." "Did your brother ask you any thing about the Bellevite, Percy?" "Not a thing: he would hardly speak to me, for he says I have disgraced the family. But, Christy, now I think of it, you are not on the South side of this question." "How do you know I am not?" asked Christy, laughing. "I heard my brother say so; and that he did not wish to have you, on any account, go near that other steamer." "I think we won't talk about that just now," added Christy cautiously, for he was not inclined to have Percy know too much about his affairs at present. "Why not? After all my brother has done, and is trying to do, to me, I don't think I am exactly on the South side of the question any more than you are," said Percy, looking with interest into the face of his companion. "If your father is a Union man, as Lindley says he is, he don't mean to have the Bellevite go into the service of the Confederacy." "That is not bad logic, with the premises on which you base it." "Just talk English, if you please, Christy." "The English of it is, that if my father is a Union man, as your brother says he is, the Bellevite is not going into the Southern navy," replied Christy, willing to encourage the major's brother. "I can understand that, Christy. Now, you are going on board of your father's steamer if you can get there." "I certainly don't want to stay on board of this little tub any longer than I am obliged to do so, for you can see that I am really a prisoner." "So am I; and that is just where we ought to be friends, and stand by each other," said Percy with a good deal of enthusiasm. "I can see through a brick wall, when there is a hole in it." "Good eyes you have, Percy, and you don't have to wear glasses." "I don't know much about logic; but if the Bellevite is not going into the Confederate navy, as I supposed when we came into Mobile Bay, I can figure it out that she is not going to stay in these parts at all." "That's your logic, Percy, not mine; but I don't think I care to argue the question on the other side," said Christy, making very light of the whole matter, though he was vastly more interested than he was willing to acknowledge.