Marcy waited until he thought Dick had had time to reach his own room, and then he opened the door and went out into the hall. He was gone about half an hour, and when he came back he was smiling all over, and rubbing his hands together, as if he felt very well satisfied with what he had done during his absence. Then he drew a chair to the table, turned up the lamp, and devoted himself to another reading of the letters and papers he had that day received from home. While he was thus engaged some things were happening a few miles away that eventually came very near raising a "sure-enough fight" at the academy, and opened the eyes of the "citizens and voters of Barrington" to the fact that they had not done a wise thing when they employed some of the most worthless members of the community to keep watch of those who did not wear red, white, and blue rosettes and hurrah for President Davis. About the time the Missouri boy and his comrades made their successful raid on the commandant's room, one of the paid spies of whom Mr. Riley had spoken during his conversation with Dick Graham went to the post-office in Barrington and was handed a letter addressed to himself. An ordinary observer would have seen at a glance that the writing on the envelope was disguised, but Bud Goble, who seldom saw writing of any sort, did not notice it. He straightened up as if he had grown an inch or more when he found that he had a correspondent who was respectful enough to address him as "Mister," and rose immensely in his own estimation when he opened the letter and with _much_ difficulty spelled out the following: "This is verry privat and perticlar bisness and i wouldnt think of speaking to nobody but you about it who are one of the most promnent and respeckted sitizens of barington." This was nothing but the truth, according to Mr. Goble's way of thinking; but up to this time he had never met any one whose opinions agreed with his own. If the business to which his correspondent referred was so very "private and particular," it would never do, he thought, to read the letter there in the post-office, while there were so many men standing around; so he straightway sought the privacy of his own dwelling--a little tumble-down log cabin with a dirt floor and stick chimney, which was situated in the outskirts of the town.