John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

[93] your ink. Of course you could not refuse him. It may have been made by you with some ink powders sent from home — perhaps the last you had and which you should want yourself that very day. It mattered not. He took it with complacency and fair promises, put it on a box by his side and tipped the box over five minutes afterward by the watch.

Cooking was the forte of this Jonah. He could be found most any time of day-or night, if he was a guardsmanaround the camp-fire with his little mess of something in his tomato can or tin dipper, which he would throw an air of

The camp-fire before the Jonah appears.

mystery around every now and then by drawing a small package from the depths of his pocket or haversack and scattering some of its contents into the brew. But there was a time in the history of his culinary pursuits when he rose to a supreme height as a blunderer. It was when he appeared at the camp-fire which, by the way, he never kindled himself, ready to occupy the choice places with his dishes; and after the two rails, between which fires were usually built, had been well burdened by the coffee-pots of his comrades it presented an opportunity which his evil genius was likely to take advantage of; for then he was suddenly seized with a thought of something else that he had forgotten to borrow. Turning in his haste to go to the