"That is precisely the truth; but I think you are responsible for the fact, not I. If you would only tell the truth----"

"Tell the truth! My dear fellow, you keep making the matter worse, instead of better."

"So do you; for, instead of abandoning your bad habit, you tell me an absurd story about killing fifteen men in a series of duels!"

"I told you I couldn't fix the exact number. You are too critical by half."

"I am not particular about the number; for I don't believe you killed even a single person in a duel. You are too good a fellow to do anything of the sort."

"Somers, I have been laboring to keep my temper; but I am afraid you will make me mad, if you keep on. I think we had better suspend this conversation before it leads to any unhappy results;" and the captain rose from the ground, and glanced in the direction of the enemy's pickets.

"The most unhappy result I could conceive of would be your continuing this bad practice of telling big stories," replied Somers, standing up by the side of his companion.

"No more; you add insult to injury, Somers."

"Really, captain, you injure yourself by this habit, and----"

Captain de Banyan, at this point of the conversation, suddenly turned round, and sprang upon the lieutenant, bearing him to the ground before the latter could even make a movement in self-defense. Together they rolled upon the earth, at the foot of the tree whose sheltering branches had protected them from the intense heat of the sun. Somers, as the reader already knows, was bold and belligerent before an attack; and, on the impulse of the moment, he proceeded to repel the sharp a.s.sault of his companion.

"If you fight a duel in that way, I am ready to take part in it," said he, his face red with anger. "Let go of me!"

"With pleasure, my dear boy," replied De Banyan, edging away from him.

"What do you mean by pitching into me in that way?" demanded Somers angrily.

"I have been trying this half hour to teach you a useful lesson; but you don't know who your best friends are."

"I think I do. Some of them tell the truth sometimes."

"Somers!" said the captain sternly.

"Captain de Banyan!" replied the lieutenant firmly.

"Do you see that hole in the tree?" continued Captain de Banyan, pointing to a fresh bullet-mark.

"I do."

"I only pulled you down to keep that rifle-ball from going through your head. I saw a rebel picket through the trees, ready to fire at us. The ball struck the tree before we struck the ground."

"Forgive me, captain. I did not understand the movement," replied Somers, extending his hand.

"With all my heart," replied the captain, taking the proffered hand. "We don't always know who our best friends are."

"Perhaps not; but I know that you are one of my best friends. You have just given me another reason for wishing you did not----" Somers hesitated, not thinking it exactly fair to reproach his companion for his vile habit, after he had rendered him such a signal service.

"Lie," added De Banyan, finishing the sentence.

"Perhaps it isn't exactly lying; you don't mean to deceive any one. At the worst, they are only white lies. Now, captain, don't you think you exaggerate sometimes?"

"Well, perhaps I do; my memory is rather poor. I don't carry my diary with me."

"Don't you think it would be better if you could confine yourself to the exact truth?" added Somers, who really felt a deep interest in his a.s.sociate.

"I think it very likely it would; but things get a little mixed up in my mind. My memory is poor on details. Just after the battle of Magenta, while I was lying wounded on the ground, one of the emperor's staff rode up to me, and asked how many cannon my regiment had captured. To save my life, I couldn't tell whether it was two hundred or three hundred. My memory is very treacherous on details."

"I believe you are hopeless, captain," laughed Somers.

"Hopeless?"

"Why, you have told the biggest story that has pa.s.sed your lips to-day."

"What, about the cannon?"

"Two hundred or three hundred! Why, your regiment captured all the guns the Austrians had!"

"Didn't I tell you I couldn't remember whether it was two hundred or three hundred? You are the most critical young man I ever met in the whole course of my life!"

"But two hundred would be an abominable exaggeration. Perhaps you meant muskets?"

"No; cannon."

"But, my dear captain, just consider for one moment. Of course the batteries were supported?"

"To be sure they were."

"Six guns to a battery would have made fifty batteries; and----"

"Oh, confound your statistics!" exclaimed the captain impatiently.

"But statistics enable us to see the truth. Now, captain, at the battle of Bunker Hill, I saw a man----"

"You?" demanded Captain de Banyan.

"I said so."

"Were you at the battle of Bunker Hill?"

"Didn't you see me there?"

"Come, come, Somers; you shouldn't trifle with the truth. I was not at the battle you speak of."

"But I was----"

"You! You were not born till sixty years after the battle of Bunker Hill."

"But I was--only ill.u.s.trating your case."

"Here comes an orderly with something from headquarters," said Captain de Banyan, apparently as much rejoiced to change the conversation as the reader will be to have it changed.