Queed said to him:  “You were badly outnumbered when they licked you.”

Flaunting his hat passionately at the thin columns, the young man shouted into space:  “Outnumbered—­outarmed—­outequipped—­outrationed—­but not outgeneraled, sir, not outsoldiered, not outmanned!”

“You seem a little excited about it.  Yet you’ve had forty years to get used to it.”

“Ah,” brandished the young man at the soldiers, a glad battlenote breaking into his voice, “I’m being addressed by a Yankee, am I?”

“No,” said Queed, “you are being addressed by an American.”

“That’s a fair reply,” said the young man; and consented to take his eyes from the parade a second to glance at the author of it.  “Hello!  You’re Doc—­Mr. Queed, aren’t you?”

Queed, surprised, admitted his identity.

“Ye-a-a-a!” said the young man, in a mighty voice.  This time he shouted it directly at a tall old gentleman whose horse was just then dancing by.  The gentleman smiled, and waved his hand at the flaunted Panama.

“A fine-looking man,” said Queed.

“My father,” said the young man.  “God bless his heart!”

“Was your father in the war?”

“Was he in the war?  My dear sir, you might say that he was the war.  But you could scrape this town with a fine-tooth comb without finding anybody of his age that wasn’t in the war.”

The necessity for a new demonstration checked his speech for a moment.

Queed said:  “Who are these veterans?  What sort of people are they?”

“The finest fellows in the world,” said the young man.  “An occasional dead-beat among them, of course, but it’s amazing how high an average of character they strike, considering that they came out of four years of war—­war’s demoralizing, you know!—­with only their shirts to their backs, and often those were only borrowed.  You’ll find some mighty solid business men in the ranks out there, and then on down to the humblest occupations.  Look!  See that little one-legged man with the beard that everybody’s cheering!  That’s Corporal Henkel of Petersburg, commended I don’t know how many times for bravery, and they would have given him the town for a keepsake when it was all over, if he had wanted it.  Well, Henkel’s a cobbler—­been one since ’65—­and let me tell you he’s a blamed good one, and if you’re ever in Petersburg and want any half-soling done, let me tell you—­Yea-a-a!  See that trim-looking one with the little mustache—­saluting now?  He tried to save Stonewall Jackson’s life on the 2d of May, 1863,—­threw himself in front of him and got badly potted.  He’s a D.D. now.  Yea-a-a-a!”

A victoria containing two lovely young girls, sponsor and maid of honor for South Carolina, dressed just alike, with parasols and enormous hats, rolled by.  The girls smiled kindly at the young man, and he went through a very proper salute.