"Fair enough," said Joe; and everybody laughed. "Another thing," said Joe, "I want to know whether you people are up on figures or whether you are a bunch of joshers. I heard Dick Disney ask Coker what he would take for his lower eighty, and Coker said he would take sixteen hundred dollars for it. Dick said he'd be damned if he'd give it--he would give twenty dollars per acre and no more. Coker told him to go to hell; and just then Wash Berry, Bill Cartmill and a half a dozen others crowded around and told them they ought to compromise. This talk was pulled off within ten feet of me," said Joe in a loud voice, "and I want to know if you think you can play horse with me, or is it possible you're all crazy in your arithmetic?" A youngster yelled, "It's you 'at's crazy," and ran off through the woods. After several further inquiries of this character the Captain said he was satisfied, and would go on with his talk. It was a great day for Joe, and the people too; and there are some of them now who remember different portions of his speech, and especially one part that was more or less prophetic of the destiny of our country and of the fact that our soldiers might have to serve across the seas. This part was as follows: "If I see the flag in unending line flung high up the city's wall, shining and shimmering all day long, it is my flag, bless God! If far out on the bleak desert, parched, barren and desolate, I see it fluff and flutter about the white adobe walls of the fort, it is my flag. If far at sea beneath the unclouded sky, the sun silvering the endless billows, it rises out of the eternal depths in its rippling folds, my blood may chill, my eyes may fill, my heart may still, for it is my flag that crests the ocean. If in a strange and alien land, alone, solitary and homesick, the pomp of royalty on every hand, suddenly there should burst in view, way up the shaded avenue, the glory, red and white and blue, oh, for the Kaiser and his crown, on me and mine to then look down, I'd lift my head and proudly say, 'That is my flag you see today, and isn't it a dandy, eh?' And I would tell his ermined queen, of all the heavens and earth between, it is the grandest thing that flies, o'er land or sea, beneath the skies! And as the years may go, as falls the snow, as flowers may blow, come weal or woe, that banner is my flag, I know." At the close of the day, the chairman of the committee was heard to remark: "Well, considerin' as how Joe wouldn't take any pay, and insisted on paying for the livery horses himself, and then bought out the stand of all the candy and cigars and give it all away among the crowd--I guess we got our money's worth." The Phantom Fisherman and Other Ghosts