The surgeon looked at the adjutant-general, gravely and significantly.  The patient’s eyes slowly closed, and thus he lay for a few moments; then, his face suffused with a smile of ineffable sweetness, he said, faintly:  “I suppose this must be death,” and so passed away.

AN AFFAIR OF OUTPOSTS

I

CONCERNING THE WISH TO BE DEAD

Two men sat in conversation.  One was the Governor of the State.  The year was 1861; the war was on and the Governor already famous for the intelligence and zeal with which he directed all the powers and resources of his State to the service of the Union.

“What! you?” the Governor was saying in evident surprise—­“you too want a military commission?  Really, the fifing and drumming must have effected a profound alteration in your convictions.  In my character of recruiting sergeant I suppose I ought not to be fastidious, but”—­there was a touch of irony in his manner—­“well, have you forgotten that an oath of allegiance is required?”

“I have altered neither my convictions nor my sympathies,” said the other, tranquilly.  “While my sympathies are with the South, as you do me the honor to recollect, I have never doubted that the North was in the right.  I am a Southerner in fact and in feeling, but it is my habit in matters of importance to act as I think, not as I feel.”

The Governor was absently tapping his desk with a pencil; he did not immediately reply.  After a while he said:  “I have heard that there are all kinds of men in the world, so I suppose there are some like that, and doubtless you think yourself one.  I’ve known you a long time and—­ pardon me—­I don’t think so.”

“Then I am to understand that my application is denied?”

“Unless you can remove my belief that your Southern sympathies are in some degree a disqualification, yes.  I do not doubt your good faith, and I know you to be abundantly fitted by intelligence and special training for the duties of an officer.  Your convictions, you say, favor the Union cause, but I prefer a man with his heart in it.  The heart is what men fight with.”

“Look here, Governor,” said the younger man, with a smile that had more light than warmth:  “I have something up my sleeve—­a qualification which I had hoped it would not be necessary to mention.  A great military authority has given a simple recipe for being a good soldier:  ’Try always to get yourself killed.’  It is with that purpose that I wish to enter the service.  I am not, perhaps, much of a patriot, but I wish to be dead.”

The Governor looked at him rather sharply, then a little coldly.  “There is a simpler and franker way,” he said.

“In my family, sir,” was the reply, “we do not do that—­no Armisted has ever done that.”

A long silence ensued and neither man looked at the other.  Presently the Governor lifted his eyes from the pencil, which had resumed its tapping, and said: