Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St.Hilaire, in his turn, took his cigar from his mouth once more, blew away the fine white rings of smoke and said: "Leonidas, it appears to me that you have hit upon the truth, or as our legal friends would say, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I am in the middle of life and I realize suddenly that in all the years I have lived I have met but few thinkers, certainly not more than half a dozen, perhaps not more than three or four." He put his cigar back in his mouth and the two puffed simultaneously and with precision, blowing out the fine, delicate rings of smoke at exactly the same time.

Gentlemen of the old school they were, even then, but Harry recognized, too, that Colonel Leonidas Talbot had spoken the weighty truth.

Stonewall Jackson was a thinker, and thinkers are never numerous in the world.

He resolved to think more for himself if he could, and he sat there trying to think, while he absently regarded the two colonels.
Colonel Leonidas Talbot, after two minutes perhaps, took the cigar from his mouth once more and said to Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St.Hilaire: "Fine cigars the Yankees make, Hector." "Quite true, Leonidas.