Stand By The Union
good language for one in his menial position. As the officer examined his form and features, and especially regarded the expression in general, he was satisfied that he could not be mistaken.

40

"I did not speak to another man; I spoke to you," added Christy, as he intensified the gaze with which he confronted the man, resorting to the tactics of a sharp lawyer in the cross-examination of an obdurate witness.

"I ask your pardon, sir, but you called me Welch, or some such name," replied the late servant, as Christy was sure he was in spite of his denial.

"I called you Walsh; and that is the name to 41 which you responded at two o'clock this morning," persisted the lieutenant.

41

"That is not my name, sir; and I refer you to the ship's papers to prove it. I am not the man to be ashamed of my name, which is not Welch or Walsh, sir, if you will excuse me for saying so."

"Will you deny that you were employed as a servant at the house of Captain Passford, at Bonnydale on the Hudson?" demanded Christy, with not a little energy in his tones and manner.

"Where, sir, if you please?" asked the sailor, with a sort of bewildered look.

"At Bonnydale!"

"Boddyvale? I never heard of the place before in my life, sir," answered the runaway servant.

Possibly the man under examination was not wholly responsible for his distortion of the name of Captain Passford's estate, as Christy was beginning to reap the penalty of his imprudence the night before, in exposing himself barefooted and half-clothed to the chill midnight air, and was developing a cold in the head that already affected his enunciation.

"Bonnydale!" repeated the officer, after using his handkerchief, and thus improving his utterance of the word.

42 "I never heard of the place before, sir," persisted the seaman.

42

"Byron!" called a boatswain's mate from the forecastle.

"That's my name—Byron, sir, at your service," said the man, as he touched his cap to the lieutenant, and rushed forward in answer to the call of his superior, evidently glad to escape from the inquisition to which he had been subjected. "On deck!" he added, as he made 
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