Repairing forthwith to a newspaper office, I wrote to the general
how sorry I was that he had been put to so much trouble--I had not
received the letter which he must have written--obliged to go home
in the morning--hoped at some future time to have the pleasure, etc.,
etc. Then I went to my lodgings on Federal Hill, and, behold! there
was the letter. "Although the ambulance"--ever blessed!--"had been so
often to the depot, it would be there on Monday morning, and again on
Tuesday evening. Don't fail to," etc. Whereupon I called for paper
and wrote the general that, in spite of the necessity for my returning
home the next day, I would be at Blank Station on Tuesday evening and
meet that ambulance--blessed ambulance!--or die in the struggle. Go I
would, and go I went--if that is grammar.
A newspaper editor--there is no end of editors in Virginia: wherever
there is a tank, a tan-yard or a wood-pile, there you find one--a
learned professor who had a flourishing school a few miles up the road
(public instruction is playing hob with most of the private schools
in Virginia), and a judge on a lecturing-tour (how is a Virginia
judge to support his family without lecturing, wood-sawing or other
supplementary business?) entertained me most agreeably on my way to
the station.
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