This was a time of great suspense.

I was impatient to get on my uniform and see how it looked, and probably wanted my old school-mates, particularly the girls, to see me in it.
The conceit was knocked out of me by two little circumstances that happened soon after the arrival of the clothes, which gave me a distaste for military uniform that I never recovered from.

Soon after the arrival of the suit I donned it, and put off for Cincinnati on horseback.

While I was riding along a street of that city, imagining that every one was looking at me, with a feeling akin to mine when I first saw General Scott, a little urchin, bareheaded, footed, with dirty and ragged pants held up by bare a single gallows--that's what suspenders were called then--and a shirt that had not seen a wash-tub for weeks, turned to me and cried: "Soldier! will you work?
No, sir--ee; I'll sell my shirt first!!" The horse trade and its dire consequences were recalled to mind.
The other circumstance occurred at home.

Opposite our house in Bethel stood the old stage tavern where "man and beast" found accommodation, The stable-man was rather dissipated, but possessed of some humor.