The familiarity with which the questioner handled my name excited my curiosity and looking up I beheld two rather seedy looking individuals with hats in hand elbowing their way down through the store. The one in advance was apparently a stranger. His companion, however, was a resident of the city, a veteran of my regiment, who bore the scars of battle on his body. He returned home from the war to learn that while he was away fighting the battles of his country one of the stay-at-homes had been making love to his wife. She went west with her paramour, and the veteran laid down under the load and let the battle of life go against him. He was no common bum, however, if he did try at times to drown his misery in strong drink. He kept pretty clear of evil and low-down associations, even if he had dropped below the level of respectable people. The veteran was a man of intelligence and spent much time with good reading, and it was my pleasure for many years to keep him pretty well supplied. Strange to relate, a publication that was his especial favorite was the old “Christian Union,” now known as the “Outlook.” Of course he held me up now and then for the loan of a dime or quarter. If I hesitated about going into my pocket, he had a way of looking up and reminding me that it was “Just for old acquaintance sake.” Perhaps it would have been better to have refused him, but I had not the heart to say no to one who had blackened his coffee pail over the same campfire with me, had carried part of my traps on many weary marches and had touched elbows with my father on the fighting line. I cannot forget such things and would not if I could. As the two approached me they halted, saluted, and the old “vet” gave me two or three sly winks, as much as to say, I’ll bet you a “V” you can’t tell who I have here. I was puzzled, but instinctively felt it was one of the old Co. H. The man had evidently seen better days. He carried his hat in his hand like a well-mannered man, and there were other unmistakable traces of birth and good breeding. We looked hard at each other. A twinkle came into a pair of black eyes that had once been the handsomest I ever saw in a man’s head. A smile hovered around his mouth, and then out of the misty past came my companion of that memorable ride of long ago. I reached out my hand and said, “It’s George,” and I believe he was more pleased than as if I had handed him a hundred-dollar greenback, which is saying a good deal, for it was plainly evident that his finances were low. It was the old story. A young man, the son of an officer of our regiment who had been the leading merchant of--well, a smart town not a hundred miles from Watertown, well educated, with prospects in life that were the best, and now the follower of a circus. Always going somewhere and never getting anywhere was the way he put it. Still, my comrade.