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“‘Me?’ says I. ‘I’ve got one Chili dollar, two /real/ pieces, and a /medio/.’

“‘Then if you’ve any last words, utter ’em,’ says that old reb. ‘The roster of your financial budget sounds quite much to be like the noise of a requiem.’

“‘Change the treatment,’ says I. ‘I admit that I’m short. Call a consultation or use radium or smuggle me in some saws or something.’

“‘Yank,’ says Doc Millikin, ‘I’ve a good notion to help you. There’s only one government in the world that can get you out of this difficulty; and that’s the Confederate States of America, the grandest nation that ever existed.’

“Just as you said to me I says to Doc; ‘Why, the Confederacy ain’t a nation. It’s been absolved forty years ago.’

“‘That’s a campaign lie,’ says Doc. ‘She’s running along as solid as the Roman Empire. She’s the only hope you’ve got. Now, you, being a Yank, have got to go through with some preliminary obsequies before you can get official aid. You’ve got to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate Government. Then I’ll guarantee she does all she can for you. What do you say, Yank?–it’s your last chance.’

“‘If you’re fooling with me, Doc,’ I answers, ‘you’re no better than the United States. But as you say it’s the last chance, hurry up and swear me. I always did like the corn whisky and ‘possum anyhow. I believe I’m half Southerner by nature. I’m willing to try the Klu-klux in place of the khaki. Get brisk.’

“Doc Millikin thinks awhile, and then he offers me this oath of allegiance to take without any kind of a chaser:

“‘I, Barnard O’Keefe, Yank, being of sound body but a Republican mind, hereby swear to transfer my fealty, respect, and allegiance to the Confederate States of America, and the government thereof in consideration of said government, through its official acts and powers, obtaining my freedom and release from confinement and sentence of death brought about by the exuberance of my Irish proclivities and my general pizenness as a Yank.’

“I repeated these words after Doc, but they seemed to me a kind of hocus-pocus; and I don’t believe any life-insurance company in the world would have issued me a policy on the strength of ’em.

“Doc went away saying he would communicate with his government immediately.

“Say–you can imagine how I felt–me to be shot in two weeks and my only hope for help being in a government that’s been dead so long that it isn’t even remembered except on Decoration Day and when Joe Wheeler signs the voucher for his pay-check. But it was all there was in sight; and somehow I thought Doc Millikin had something up his old alpaca sleeve that wasn’t all foolishness.

“Around to the jail comes old Doc again in about a week. I was flea- bitten, a mite sarcastic, and fundamentally hungry.

“‘Any Confederate ironclads in the offing?’ I asks. ‘Do you notice any sounds resembling the approach of Jeb Stewart’s cavalry overland or Stonewall Jackson sneaking up in the rear? If you do, I wish you’d say so.’

“‘It’s too soon yet for help to come,’ says Doc.

“‘The sooner the better,’ says I. ‘I don’t care if it gets in fully fifteen minutes before I am shot; and if you happen to lay eyes on Beauregard or Albert Sidney Johnston or any of the relief corps, wig- wag ’em to hike along.’

“‘There’s been no answer received yet,’ says Doc.

“‘Don’t forget,’ says I, ‘that there’s only four days more. I don’t know how you propose to work this thing, Doc,’ I says to him; ‘but it seems to me I’d sleep better if you had got a government that was alive and on the map–like Afghanistan or Great Britain, or old man Kruger’s kingdom, to take this matter up. I don’t mean any disrespect to your Confederate States, but I can’t help feeling that my chances of being pulled out of this scrape was decidedly weakened when General Lee surrendered.’