“Is it not that we will be occupied on the morning of to-morrow with the signing of those papers of importance, Your Excellency?” he asked with a grave annoyance which was under a fine control.

“The Secretary of State, General Carruthers, and I think it will be best that you see the grazing lands of Harpeth and some of the mules being put into condition before the signing of the contracts,” was what was “handed out to him,” as my Buzz would have expressed it, by my Gouverneur Faulkner with a great courtesy and kindliness as he helped himself to some excellent chicken prepared in a fry.  I could see a great start of alarm come into the eyes of that small Lieutenant, the Count de Bourdon, at those calm words, but he gave not a sign of it.  In my heart was a great hope that something had been discovered for the protection of my soldiers of France, and I also took to myself a portion of that excellent chicken and did make the attempt to consume it as I beheld all of those great gentlemen performing.  I believe that under excitement men possess a much greater calmness of appetite than do women.

“Monsieur le Gouverneur, it is not necessary that I behold those lands and those mules; the signature of the great Gouverneur of the State of Harpeth will make a mule to grow from a desert, in the eyes of the French Government,” he said with a smile of great charm spreading over his very small countenance.

But just at this moment, when a reply would have been of an awkwardness to make, the music, which is made by a most delightful band of black men for all eating in that Club of Old Hickory, began to play the great Marseillaise, and with one motion all of the gentlemen in that dining room rose to their feet in respect to the distinguished guest of that Old Hickory Club.  Also many friendly glances were cast upon me, which I returned with a smile of great gratitude.

“Yes, the pen is mightier than the mule stick in his eyes, the scoundrel,” remarked my Uncle, the General Robert, as I drove to the Capitol with him in his car, while the Gouverneur Faulkner took his guest with him in his.

“Is any proof been found that he shall not do this robbery to France, my Uncle Robert?” I asked with great eagerness.

“Trap is about ready to spring, but not quite.  God, but Jeff Whitworth is a skilled thief!  I know what he is up to but I can’t quite get it on the surface.  Keep the French robber busy, boy, for a little longer, and I’ll land him.  Here we are at the office!  Now you get busy keeping them busy—­and I’ll land ’em.  If not, I’ll go and show France what real fighting is and I’ll take you with me into the worst trench they’ve got!  Battles, indeed—­they ought to have been at Chickamauga.  Now depart!” With which words my Uncle, the General Robert, got out of the car and left me to direct it to wherever I chose.

“I have a warmth at heart that the three men most beloved of me would go onto the French battle line with me,” I murmured to myself as the black chauffeur drove me back to that Club of Old Hickory to get me again in company of my Buzz.  “And yet it is the custom of women to believe that they command the deepest affection of which a man is possessed.  And, helas, it is believed to be impossible for a comrade that he be also a lover!”