The
fact was that, for many days, he had been fasting from the luxuries
dearest to every American heart--whisky and tobacco; for all money and
clothes had been taken from him at the Provost Marshal's office, and
never were returned: in these respects, after my arrival, he fared
sumptuously, by comparison, and abated greatly of his discontent. I
might have been much more unfortunate in my companion. He was not
conversational, certainly, nor very amusing in any way; but he was
cunning in all the small crafts of captivity, and kept our chamber swept
and garnished to the best of his power. The way in which dust
accumulated and renewed itself within those narrow limits, was little
short of miraculous; you might brush till you were weary, and ten
minutes afterwards things would look as though brooms had never been.
Twining ropes out of sea sand, or any other of the tasks with which
wizards have baffled fiends, were not more helpless than that on which
my comrade busied himself each morning. The wood fire could not account
for it; the nuisance increased when it became too warm to light anything
but candles; so it must remain another of the physical puzzles
concerning which we are perpetually wondering, where it all comes from,
and are never likely to be satisfied.
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