"They're a pretty set to fight a gunboat," he whispered to Dick while the two were hitching their horses at the rack. "And I'll bet my roll of Confederate scrip against yours that they never take any conscripts to the camp of instruction. I'll go farther, and say that they will never start with any, for when they are wanted they'll not be found. Now let's go in and see what sort of a chap we have to deal with."
Dick Graham put him down at once as a conceited prig, who did not know a thing outside of office routine, and was so disgusted with the airs he tried to throw on that he did not salute when he handed out his discharge; but Rodney, who did not care any more for the enrolling officer than he did for a crooked stick in the road, pursued a different course, and very soon succeeded in making Captain Roach ashamed of himself. He made him see that there was a big difference between a veteran soldier and a Home Guard, and ended by asking him to dinner.
"Now you've done it," said Dick, as the two mounted their horses and rode homeward. "If your mother had wanted that officer at her table, don't you think she would have asked him long ago?"
"Oh, that's all right," said Rodney. "We're privileged characters, and my folks will back up anything we do or say. Besides, during the last three days I've got to be a policy man."
"Just this: so long as Captain Roach collogues with Tom Randolph and his mother—she's the one I am afraid of, for she is a schemer from the word go, I tell you—so long will he be more or less under their influence; and I am well enough acquainted with them to know that they would not hesitate to say or do anything that came into their heads if they thought they could set him against me. So I wanted the first chance at the captain. There's no telling at what moment he may be able to do us a good turn."
When the boys reached home they were surprised to find that there was a good deal of suppressed excitement among the servants, which showed itself now and then in spite of all their efforts to keep it concealed. Rodney's black playmate, who came to the steps to take charge of their horses, was full of news, but his master could not get anything out of him, although he threatened, if he did not speak, to take him on board the gunboats and sell him to the Yankees the first thing in the morning. When they went into the house they met Mrs. Gray, whose face showed that she was not altogether at her ease.