"Gentlemen, your attention," demands Culpepper.

The stranger swallows his Adam's apple as if to speak; Martin turns to him with, "Don't you say that word again, sir, or I'll wring your neck." Then he proceeds:-- "Gentlemen, this busybody has come all the way from Washington here to tell me I'm a thief.

I wrote to his damn Yankee government that I was needing the money last winter to go East on the aid committee and would replace it, and now that I'm going out to-morrow to die for his damn Yankee government, he has the impertinence to come in here and say I stole that money.

Now what I want to ask you, gentlemen, is this: Do I go out to-morrow to die on the field of glory for my country, or does this here little contemptible whippersnapper take me off to rot in some Yankee jail?
I leave it to you, gentlemen.

Settle it for yourselves." And with that Culpepper throws the man into the crowd and walks behind the screen in solemn state.
The boy never knew how it was settled.