"Do I? Well, I should say I did. You fellows certainly had us going that day, and if you had been smart you would have pushed matters, captured Washington, and thus ended the war, or at least have been in a position to dictate your own terms. As to our retreat, I remember so well the disgusted tones of a staunch Union lady living in Washington, speaking to one of the boys on the night of our return. "'You coward!' she said bitterly, 'to run away at the first fire! Don't you know that the finger of scorn will be pointed at you all the rest of your life?' "'That may be so, lady,' said the soldier doggedly, 'but I'd ruther hev the finger o' scorn pinted at me any time than one o' them damned Rebel cannon!' "And another of the boys limping by, foot-sore and weary, was accosted by this same angry dame, 'You ran, did you? You ran! Shame! Shame! A big fellow like you! Why did you run?' "'I run, mum, 'cause I couldn't _fly_, that's why I run!'" "Yes, quite true; and yet, after all, how like the moon we are," muttered one of the newspaper men disconnectedly. "How so?" inquired Senator Hammond acidly. "Why, here we are, full--gloriously full--on the twentieth of the month, and eight days later, down to our last quarter." "That's bad, very bad, O'Brien," said another scribe mournfully. "Forgive him, Senator. I will have something to say to him later." Withering glances were cast at the unlucky one, who seemed about to sink under the table, and the wind outside howled dismally, and rattled the windows in its rage. [Illustration: Senator Pennypacker.] The situation was steadied somewhat by Senator Pennypacker. The Senator, who entered public life five years ago a poor man, and who, by living economically, saving his pay, and borrowing his chewing tobacco, is at present worth considerably over a million dollars, now favored the company with some sage remarks as to the tendency of the times toward extravagance, the high cost of living in Washington, the iniquity of the boarding-house keepers, and the difficulty he had to make both ends meet. The Senator is a tall, lank, ungainly looking man; thin lipped, with mean, cunning eyes, strained ever for the main chance. A few tufts of reddish hair are flattened on either side of his cranium, and his nose and chin were sharpened on the grindstone of necessity and early hardship into twin beaks. Verily a vulture, battening now on the Trusts, and feared and hated by other birds of smaller body and weaker wing. With him, Selfishness is indeed the main-spring of Ambition! His features are well-known to the public through the medium of those extensive advertisements in the papers heralding the great vegetable remedy "Gee-Soo-Na." His remarks were received in silence, though a careful observer might have noticed an exchange of solemn winks between Colonel Manysnifters and Sammy Ridley.