else with troops who won't fight; who in the most critical
moment desert by fifties, by hundreds, ay, by whole regiments?
Six thousand men have left us since we crossed into Jersey.
A brigade of your own troops--of the State we had come to
fight for--left us yesterday morning, when news came that
Cornwallis was advancing upon our position at Newark.
What can we do but retreat?"

"Well, may I be dummed!" ejaculated Bagby, "if it is n't
Squire Meredith's runaway bondsman, and dressed as fine
as a fivepence!"

The officer laughed scornfully. "Ay," he assented. "'T is
the fashion of the land to run away, so 't is only a la mode
that bondsmen and slaves should imitate their betters."

"Yer need n't mount us Americans so hard, seem' as yer
took mortal good care ter git in the front ranks of them as
wuz retreatin'," asserted an Invincible.

I undertook to guide the retreat, because I knew the
roads of the region," retorted the officer, hotly, evidently
stung by the remark; then he laughed savagely and continued:
"And how comes it, gentlemen all, that you are not gloriously
serving your country? Cornwallis, with nine thousand picked
infantry, is but a twenty miles to the northward; Knyphausen
and six thousand Hessians landed at Perth Amboy this morning,
and would have got between us and Philadelphia but for
our rapid retreat. Canst sit and booze yourself with flip and
swizzle when there are such opportunities for valour? Hast