I reckoned I'd waltz over and bring along the boy," pointing to a grizzled negro servant of sixty who was bowing before them, "to tote yo'r things over instead of using a hack.

I haven't run much on horseflesh since the wah--ha! ha! What I didn't use up for remounts I reckon yo'r commissary gobbled up with the other live stock, eh ?" He laughed heartily, as if the recollections were purely humorous, and again clapped Courtland on the back.
"Let me introduce my friend, Mr.Drummond, Major Reed," said Courtland, smiling.
"Yo' were in the wah, sir ?" "No--I"-- returned Drummond, hesitating, he knew not why, and angry at his own embarrassment.
"Mr.Drummond, the vice-president of the company," interposed Courtland cheerfully, "was engaged in furnishing to us the sinews of war." Major Reed bowed a little more formally.

"Most of us heah, sir, were in the wah some time or other, and if you gentlemen will honah me by joining in a social glass at the hotel across the way, I'll introduce you to Captain Prendergast, who left a leg at Fair Oaks." Drummond would have declined, but a significant pressure on his arm from Courtland changed his determination.

He followed them to the hotel and into the presence of the one-legged warrior (who turned out to be the landlord and barkeeper), to whom Courtland was hilariously introduced by Major Reed as "the man, sir, who had pounded my division for three hours at Stony Creek!" Major Reed's house was but a few minutes' walk down the dusty lane, and was presently heralded by the baying of three or four foxhounds and foreshadowed by a dilapidated condition of picket-fence and stuccoed gate front.

Beyond it stretched the wooden Doric columns of the usual Southern mansion, dimly seen through the broad leaves of the horse-chestnut-trees that shaded it.