They examined my baggage at the depot.

They took one of my ablest jokes and read it over carefully twice and then read it backwards.
But it was too deep for them.

They passed it around, and every body speculated on it awhile, but it mastered them all.
It was no common joke.

At length a veteran officer spelled it over deliberately and shook his head three or four times and said that in his opinion it was seditious.

That was the first time I felt alarmed.