Are you ?"--and that little seven-year smile twinkled across his face again.
Seventeen years have gone by since then, and to-day, in New York, the streets are a crush of people who are there to honor the remains of the great soldier as they pass to their final resting-place under the monument; and the air is heavy with dirges and the boom of artillery, and all the millions of America are thinking of the man who restored the Union and the flag, and gave to democratic government a new lease of life, and, as we may hope and do believe, a permanent place among the beneficent institutions of men.
We had one game in the ship which was a good time-passer--at least it was at night in the smoking-room when the men were getting freshened up from the day's monotonies and dullnesses.

It was the completing of non-complete stories.

That is to say, a man would tell all of a story except the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending out of their own invention.

When every one who wanted a chance had had it, the man who had introduced the story would give it its original ending--then you could take your choice.

Sometimes the new endings turned out to be better than the old one.