“I want to buy Bently out, Jake,” he said briefly. “I've got money enough put by to meet his price. Now'll you go in with me? for I must have a partner with capital. Wait a minute—I want you should see this before you give me your answer;” and he placed the mechanism he had brought from the pattern room in the lawyer's hands. “Do you know what you got there, Jake?” he asked, after a moment's silence. “It's the stock and breech of a gun,” said the lawyer, turning it over. “It's a repeating rifle, Jake—my own invention, and even if I do say it, it's the greatest weapon ever made! Put that in the hands of one Yankee, and he'll be the match for twenty rebels; do you think the government's going to stand off when I get it in shape to offer? I sha'n'. be able to fill the contracts! Look here, it loads with this special cartridge—automatic—do you see? And feeds from the stock where ten rounds will be carried, and them ten rounds will be available in almost as many seconds. Jake, once I begin to manufacture them rifles, secession's got its death blow; nothing will make good the difference between a muzzle loading musket and that weapon! Once that's in the hands of the Yankees, they will be hunting Jeff Davis in his own back-yard—nothing'll stop 'em!” “But what do you want me to do?” asked Benson. “Join me in making that arm! I'll ask you for no money now, all I want is that you should stand ready to put in a few thousands—say eight or ten—in case we're slow in realizing on our contracts.” “How soon will these demands begin?” “Not under five or six months.” “Very well,” said the lawyer. “You can close with Mr. Bently while he's in the humour to sell; later we can draw up papers covering the partnership—there's no hurry about that.” And before the two hours for which he had stipulated had elapsed, Tom Benson had closed with Mr. Bendy, and rather less than twenty minutes later he was back at the shops and had given orders to have the old sign which read “Bendy's Foundry” painted out, and “The Benson Iron Works,” the new firm name, under which he intended to continue the business, painted in its stead. Before Stephen left Camp Jackson, near Columbus, where he was mustered in, he was displaying so great an aptitude for his work, that McKeever, now advanced to a colonelcy, urged his claims to such good purpose, that when he was wounded in a skirmish at Romney, Virginia, and was sent home on sick leave, a lieutenant's commission shortly followed him thither. His first home-coming his Aunt remembered long afterward with entire satisfaction. Their little estrangement was forgotten; he was frank and affectionate as he had always been. He had developed wonderfully; his shoulders had broadened and he was brown and muscular, the boy had become a man. He had quite lost his air of troubled preoccupation born of his doubt and foreboding of the future, for his future no longer troubled him.