This grand fact I learned by two senses. If hundreds of thousands roared
it into my ears, thousands slapped it into my back. My fellow-citizens
smote me on the knapsack, as I went by at the gun-rope, and encouraged
me each in his own dialect. "Bully for you!" alternated with
benedictions, in the proportion of two "bullies" to one blessing.
I was not so fortunate as to receive more substantial tokens of
sympathy. But there were parting gifts showered on the regiment, enough
to establish a variety-shop. Handkerchiefs, of course, came floating
down upon us from the windows, like a snow. Pretty little gloves pelted
us with love-taps. The sterner sex forced upon us pocket-knives new and
jagged, combs, soap, slippers, boxes of matches, cigars by the dozen
and the hundred, pipes to smoke shag and pipes to smoke Latakia, fruit,
eggs, and sandwiches. One fellow got a new purse with ten bright
quarter-eagles.
At the corner of Grand Street, or thereabouts, a "bhoy" in red flannel
shirt and black dress pantaloons, leaning back against the crowd with
Herculean shoulders, called me,--"Saaey, bully! take my dorg! he's one of
the kind that holds till he draps.
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