He was an amiable old fellow, with gray hair carefully combed back from his curved forehead, a florid countenance, boyish blue eyes, puffed cheeks, a smooth chin, and very military-looking gray moustache. He was manifestly a man who ate ample dinners and amply digested them. He would glance contentedly downward at his broad, round body, and smilingly remark: “I didn't have that girth in my fightin' days. I got it after the war was over.” All who knew him admired him. He would tell with simple frankness how, after distinguishing himself at Antietam, he chose to remain a private rather than take the lieutenancy that was placed within his reach. He would frequently say: “I ain't none o' them that thinks the country belongs to the soldiers because they saved it. No, sir! If they want the country as a reward, where's the credit in savin' it?” How could one help exclaiming: “What a really noble old man!” Finally some of the young men who received daily inspiration from his autobiographical narratives arranged a surprise for the old soldier. They presented him with a finely framed picture of the battle of Gettysburg, under which was the inscription: “To a True Patriot. Who Fought and Suffered Not for Self-Interest or Glory, but for Love of His Country.” This hung in his shop until the day of his death. Then his brother came from his native village to attend to his burial. The brother stared at the picture, inquired as to the meaning of the inscription, and then laughed vociferously. In the old soldier's trunk was found a faded newspaper that had been published in his village in 1865. It contained an account of an accident by which a grocer's clerk had lost his arm in a thrashing-machine. The grocer's clerk and the old soldier were one person. He had never seen a battle, but so often had he told his war stories that in his last days he believed them. X. -- A VAGRANT On a July evening at dusk, two boys sat near the crest of a grass-grown embankment by the railroad at the western side of a Pennsylvania town. They talked in low tones of the sky's glow above where the sun had set beyond the low hills across the river, and also of the stars, and of the moon, which was over the housetop behind them. Then there was noise of insects chirping in the grass and of steam escaping from the locomotive boilers in the engine shed. A rumble sounded as from the north, and in that direction a locomotive headlight came into view. It neared as the rumble grew louder, and soon a freight-train appeared. This rolled past at the foot of the embankment. From between two grain cars leaped a man, and after him another. So rapidly was the train moving that they seemed to be hurled from it. Both alighted upon their feet. One tall and lithe, led the way up the embankment, followed by the other, who was short and stocky. “Bums,” whispered one of the boys at the top of the embankment.