TWO:"Now, you ladies--" cried the teased aide-de-camp, "I--I didn't save Gholson's life! I didn't try to save it! I only tried to split a Yankee's head and didn't even do that! Dick Smith, if you tell anybody else that I saved--Well, who did, then? Good Lordy! if I'd known that to save a man's life would make all this fuss I wouldn't 'a' done it! Why, Quinn and I had to sit and listen to Ned Ferry a solid half-hour last night, telling us the decent things he'd known Gholson to do, and the allowances we'd ought to make for a man with Gholson's sort of a conscience! And then, to cap--to clap--to clap the ki'--to cap--the climax--consound that word, I never did know what it meant--to clap the climax, Ned sends for Gholson and gets Quinn to speak to him civilly--aw, haw, haw!--Quinn showing all the time how he hated the job, like a cat when you make him jump over a stick! And then he led us on, with just a word here and there, until we all agreed as smooth as glass, that all Quinn had said was my fault, and all I had done was Gholson's fault, and all Gholson had said or done or left undone was our fault, and the rest was partly Ned's fault, but mostly accident."

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