You can't get back
of that; and they didn't do it for a medal, either, but because it was
their duty. And so the medal meant nothing to them: their conscience
told them they had done the right thing; they didn't need a stamped
coin to remind them of it, or of their wounds, either, perhaps."
"Quite right; that's quite true," Miss Catherwaight would say. "But
how about this? Look at this gold medal with the diamonds: 'Presented
to Colonel James F. Placer by the men of his regiment, in camp before
Richmond.' Every soldier in the regiment gave something toward that,
and yet the brave gentleman put it up at a game of poker one night,
and the officer who won it sold it to the man who gave it to me. Can
you defend that?"
Miss Catherwaight was well known to the proprietors of the pawnshops
and loan offices on the Bowery and Park Row. They learned to look for
her once a month, and saved what medals they received for her and
tried to learn their stories from the people who pawned them, or else
invented some story which they hoped would answer just as well.
Though her brougham produced a sensation in the unfashionable streets
into which she directed it, she was never annoyed.
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