THE ORPHEUS C. KERR PAPERS.

SECOND SERIES.

LETTER LIII.

NOTING THE LAMENTABLE INCONVENIENCES OF A "PRESS-CENSORSHIP," AND PARTIALLY REVEALING THE CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDANT ON A MARVELLOUS STRATEGIC CHANGE OF BASE BY THE MACKEREL BRIGADE.

Washington, D. C., July 6, 1862.

When in the course of human events, my boy, it becomes necessary for a chap of respectable parentage to write a full and graphic account of a great battle, without exasperating the press-censor by naming the locality of the conflict, nor giving the number of the troops engaged, the officers commanding, the movements of the different regiments, the nature of the ground, the time of day, or the result of the struggle; when it becomes necessary for a chap of respectable parentage to do this, my boy, that chap reminds me of a poor chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward.

The poor chap took daguerreotype-likenesses in high style for low prices, and one day, there came to his third-story Louvre a good-looking young man, dressed in a high botanical vest-pattern and six large-sized breast-pins, and says he to the picture chap, confidentially:

"There's a young woman living in Henry-street, which I love, and who admires to see my manly shape; but her paternal father refuses to receive me into the family on account of my low celery. Now," says the breastpin-chap, knowingly, "I will give you just twenty-five dollars if you'll go to that house and take the portrait of that young lady for me, pretending that you have heard of her unearthly charms, and want her picture, to add to the collection shortly to be sent to the Prince of Wales."

Having witnessed the worst passions of his landlord that morning, my boy, and received a telegraphic dispatch of immediate importance from his tailor, the artist chap heard about the twenty-five dollar job with a species of deep rapture, and undertook to do the job. He went to the Henry-street palatial mansion with his smallest camera under his arm, and when he got into the parlor he sent for the young lady. But she didn't see it in that light, my boy, and she wouldn't come down. For a moment the poor chap was in a fix; but he was there to take her portrait, or perish in the attempt, and as he saw an oil-painting of the young girl over the mantelpiece, he took that, and skedaddled. The next day the breastpin-chap called at his Louvre again, and says to him:

"Have you taken Sary's portrait?"

"Yes," says the artist chap, "I took it."

"Where is it?" says the breastpin-chap with emotion.

"There it is," says the artist-chap, pointing to the oil-painting, with a pleasing expression of countenance.

As high art is not appreciated in this country, my boy, a policeman called at the Louvre that afternoon and removed the artist-chap to a place which is so musical that all the windows have bars, and each man carries a stave.

As my taste for music is not uncontrollable at present, my boy, and I can't write a full account of a battle, without referring in some degree to the struggle, which we are forbidden to mention, I shall not be particular as to details.

I am permitted to say that I went down to Paris with my gothic steed Pegasus on Monday last, and found the Mackerel Brigade coming back across Duck Lake with the frantic intention of changing its base of operations. The Conic Section, my boy, had been ordered to advance and force the Southern Confederacy to compel it to retreat, and the rapidity with which this was accomplished was a brilliant vindication of the consummate strategy of the general of the Mackerel Brigade. I found the general a few miles back of the scene of action issuing orders—for the same, with a little more sugar, and says I:

"Well, my indefatigable Napoleon, have you changed your base successfully?"

The general smiled like a complacent porpoise, and says he:

"We've reached our second base, my friend, being compelled to do so by the treble force of the enemy."

I went on to the second base, which I reached just in time to see Captain Villiam Brown, on his geometrical steed Euclid, arresting the flight of Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Samyule Sa-mith.

"Samyule! Samyule!" says Villiam, feeling behind him to make sure that his canteen was all right, "is this the way you treat the United States of America at such a critical period in her distracted history?"

"I scorn your insinivation," says Samyule, "and repel your observation. I am executing a rapid flank movement according to Hardee."

"Ah!" says Villiam, "excuse my flighty remarks. I do not mean to say that you can be frightened," says Villiam, soothingly; "but it's my opinion that your mother was very much annoyed by a large-sized fly just before you were added to the census of the United States of America."

Villiam's idea of the connection between cause and effect, my boy, is as clear as a brandy-punch when the sugar settles.

The battle now raged in a manner which I am not permitted to describe, with results I am not allowed to communicate. Villiam appeared wherever the fray was the thickest, waving his celebrated sword Escalibar (Anglo-Saxon of crowbar), and encouraging all the faint-hearted ones to get between himself and the blazing Confederacy. Borne a considerable distance backward by the force of circumstances, he had reached a comparatively clear spot in the rear, when he suddenly found himself confronted by Captain Munchausen, of the Southern Confederacy.

Captain Munchausen was mounted upon the thinnest excuse for four legs that I ever saw, my boy; and what tempted nature to form such an excuse when the same amount of bone-work would have brought more money, it was not for mortal man to know.

"Ha!" says Villiam, hastily reining-up Euclid, and touching his sword Escalibar, ominously, "we meet once more to discuss the great national question of personal carnage."

"Sir," says Captain Munchausen, superciliously waving his keen edged poker and drawing his fiery steed up from his knees, "it is my private intention to produce some slaughter in a private family of the name of Brown."

Fire flashed from Villiam's eyes, he replaced a small flask in his bosom, and says he:

"Come on, and let the fight come off."

Then, my boy, commenced a series of equestrian manœuvres calculated to exemplify all the latest improvements in cavalry tactics and patent circusses.—Round and round each other rode the fierce foemen, bobbing convulsively in their saddles like exasperated jumping-jacks, and cutting the atmosphere into minute slices with their deadly blades. Now did the determined Villiam amble sideways toward the rebel, thrusting fiercely at him when only a few yards intervened between them; and anon did the foaming Munchausen wriggle fiercely backward against the haunches of the steed Euclid, slashing right and left with tumultuous perspiration.

It was when this thrilling combat was at the hottest that the steed Euclid, being exasperated by a large blue-bottle fly, arose airily to his hind legs, and carried the Union champion right on top of his enemy. Down came the glittering Escalibar on the shoddy helmet of the astonished Munchausen; but the deadly blade was not sharp enough for its purpose, and only caused the foeman to make hasty profane remarks.

"Ah!" says Villiam, bitterly, eyeing his sword as Euclid waltzed backward, "I forgot to sharpen my brand after cutting that last plate of smoke-beef."

"Surrender!" shouted the unmanly Munchausen, noticing that Villiam was sheathing his blade, and bearing gracefully down upon him in an elaborate equestrian polka.

"Never!" says Villiam, drawing his revolver, and firing madly into the setting sun.

Swiftly as the lightning flashes did the Confederate champion follow suit with his pistol, sending a bullet horribly whizzing into the nearest tree.

"Die!" shouted Villiam, prancing excitedly in all directions, and delivering another shot. Then he gazed upon his revolver with an expression of inexpressible woe. The weapon had deceived him!

"Perish!" roared Munchausen, discharging another barrel as he went hopping about. After which, he ground his teeth, and gazed upon his pistol with speechless fury. The weapon had played him false!

I was gazing with breathless interest on this desperate encounter, my boy, expecting to see more slaughter, when Captain Munchausen suddenly turned his spirited stallion, and fled frantically from the scene; for he had heard the shouts of the approaching Mackerels, and did not care to be taken just then.

"Ha!" says Villiam, gazing severely at Company 3, Regiment 5, as it came pouring forward, "has the Southern Confederacy concluded to submit to the United States of America?"

What the answer was, my boy, I am not allowed to say; but you may rest satisfied that a thing has been done which I am not permitted to divulge; and should this lead, as I hope it will, to a movement I am not suffered to make public, it cannot fail to result in a consummation which I am forbidden to make known. But if, on the other hand, the strategic movement which I am not at liberty to describe should be followed by a stroke I am restrained from explaining, you will find that the effect it would not be judicious in me to set forth, will produce a consequence which the War Department denies me the privilege of developing.

I was speaking to a New England Congress chap, this morning, concerning the recent events which I am compelled to remain silent about, and, says he: "The proper way to save the Union is to bewilder the rebels by issuing calls for fresh troops at breakfast-time, and countermanding the calls as soon as the coffee comes in. Strategy," says the grave legislative chap, thoughtfully, "is not confined to the tented field; it may be used with good effect by Cabinet ministers; and our recent proposal to reduce the army 150,000 men was a piece of consummate legislative strategy."

Legislative strategy is a very good thing to bewilder the rebels, my boy; and if it also bewilders everybody else, the moral effect of the adjournment of Congress will prove rather beneficial than otherwise to our distracted country.

Yours, under suppression, Orpheus C. Kerr.

LETTER LIV.

ILLUSTRATING THE DISASTROUS EFFECTS OF STRATEGY UPON NATIONAL LITERATURE, AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE ORIGINAL TALE READ BY OUR CORRESPONDENT BEFORE THE COSMOPOLITAN CLUB.

Washington, D. C., July 9th, 1862.

A few weeks ago, my boy, when national strategy seemed rapidly coming to a distinct understanding with the American Eagle, and the fall of Richmond had resolved itself into a mere question of time—as slightly distinguished from Eternity,—I became a member of the Cosmopolitan Club.

This club, my boy, is a select draft from the host of clumsy but respectable foreigners now assembled here to criticize the military performances of our distracted country, and I have the honor to represent my native land, solus, in it. Its members are, a civilized Russian chap named Vitchisvitch, a Turk named N. E. Ottoman, an Englishman named Smith-Brown, a Frenchman named Bonbon, a German named Tuyfeldock, a Spaniard and myself.

The object of this small international organization, which meets once every three weeks, is to advance the cause of free and easy literature in the lulls of national strife, and preserve coherent ideality and tolerable grammar from falling into disuse. The foreign chaps, my boy, all speak much better English than a majority of our brigadiers; and in order to give a system to our proceedings, it has been resolved, that each of us, in turn, shall relate an old-fashioned story relating to his own particular country; and that all shall take pains to contribute miscellaneous items for the general delectation of the club.

The privilege of producing the first story was voted to me, my boy, and at the meeting of the Cosmopolitan last evening, I produced from my pocket a manuscript already secured from me by a wealthy journal (Vanity Fair.—Ed.) for a fabulous sum, and proceeded to regale assembled Europe with

A QUARTER OF TWELVE.

CHAPTER I.—F. F. VICISSITUDES.

The forces of the Southern Confederacy—so called because a majority of them were forced into the service—had just won another glorious victory over their disinclination to retreat, and were rapidly following it up, propelled by the National Army. The richest and best blood of the South was profusely running for the cause to which it was devoted, accompanied by those notable possessors in whose cases it poured in vein.

Seated at his breakfast-table in the city of Richmond, with his wife for a vis-a-vis at a board that might well have groaned for more things than one, and his daughter at his right hand, was Mr. Ordeth, a scion of one of those Virginia Families very properly designated as "First" for the reason that no other Families on earth have ever felt inclined to second them in anything.

Mr. Ordeth was a personage of fiery and chivalrous visage, from the lower circumference of which depended iron-grey whiskers, so similar in shape to the caudal appendage of a mule, that one might suppose nature to have intended the construction of an asinus domesticus when first she commenced to mould the mortal material, but, having inadvertently planted the tail at the wrong end, was satisfied to finish him off as a man. His hair was too much of a brush in its own character to agree well with an artificial brush in the objective case; he wore a robe de chambre richly illustrated with impossible flowers growing on improbable soil—let us say on holey ground; his nether continuations were spotted here and there with diminutive banners of broadcloth secession, and it was noticeable as he stretched his feet under the table that his slippers had once done duty as crochet watch-cases.

The table spread for the morning meal was peculiarly Virginiatic, being very rich in plate and poor in provender; for hoe-cake and fried Carolina potatoes were the only eatables visible, whilst the usual places of coffee-pot, bread-plate and salt-cellar were supplied with cards inscribed: "Coffee $20 per lb., in consequence of Blockade."—"Flour $24 per bbl."—"Salt $25 per lb." If any member of the Family felt inclined to wish for any of these last articles, he, or she, had but to glance at the card substitutes to lose instantaneously all appetite for said articles. There was philosophy in this idea, mon ami.

"Libby," said Mr. Ordeth, addressing his daughter, whose auburn curls and pretty face were none the less attractive because they crowned what seemed to be a troubled fountain of extremely loud calico with a dash of moonlight on top—"Libby," said he, "pass me the morning journal."

The morning journal, which had recently augmented its value as a family and commercial sheet by coming out on superior wrapping paper, was passed to her father by Libby, she having first satisfied herself, with a sigh of disappointment, that the list of deaths did not contain the name of a single one of her friends.

Woman, mon ami, does not regard death as you and I do. To her it is a sleep in which the slumberer himself becomes a dream for the rest of the world; and its announcement is to her the mere evening breeze that softly lifts another leaf in the sacred Volume of Memory, and lets the starlight, falling through a shower of tears, rest on a name henceforth to live immortal in the heart. I was told this by a young lady who wears spectacles and writes for the Boston press.

As Mr. Ordeth perused the latest news from the seat of war, his bosom heaved to such an extent that one or two of the pins confining the front of his dressing-gown to his throat gave out. "Honoria," said he, addressing his quiet little wife, who was spasmodically eating and repairing a rent in her dress simultaneously,—"we have again defeated the hordes of Lincoln, and I think, my dear, that we had better get ready to leave Richmond. The Enquirer says: 'Yesterday a half a hundred of our troops were attacked near Fredericksburg by nearly forty thousand Yankees, whom they compelled to retreat after them toward this city. We took four hundred prisoners who will be demanded of the enemy immediately, and all of our men, save the messenger bringing the news, are now briskly pushing forward in the direction of Fort Lafayette.' You see, my dear, we always whip them inland. The Yankees gain all their victories on water."

Which is very true; for it is as much a fact that the national troops win their triumphs on water, as it is that the rebels do their best on whiskey.

Mrs. Ordeth made no verbal reply to her husband's exultations, but assumed that simpering expression of countenance by which ladies are accustomed to denote their amiable willingness to swallow without question whatever the speaker may say.

"Providence is evidently favorable to the South," continued the head of the Family, impressively, "and has thus far treated us in a gentlemanly manner; but should it happen, Honoria, that the Hessian vandals of Lincoln should reach this city, I myself will be the first to fire all I hold dear, rather than let it fall into the hands of the invader. Yes!" exclaimed Mr. Ordeth with enthusiasm, rising from his chair and moving excitedly toward the door of the apartment,—"with my own hands would I apply the torch to you and to my child."

"O Victor," said Mrs. Ordeth, with tears springing to her eyes, "I reckon you would."

"Aside from the wrongs of the South," continued the inspired Ordeth, pushing his bowie-knife a little further round behind his back, that it might not hurt his hip,—"we have Family losses to avenge. Only yesterday, my uncle was struck at Yorktown with a shell that completely tore his head from his body."

"How perfectly absurd!" ejaculated the hitherto silent Libby.

"Why it's actually ridiculous," said Mrs. Ordeth.

And so it was. The sex have a keen perception of the ludicrous.

"How I wish that our vigilants had caught that low-minded Abolition whelp, Peters," continued the Virginian, grinding his teeth; "but he disappeared so suddenly that day, that I was entirely bewildered. To think that the hound—my cousin's son as he is—should dare to demand payment of a bill from a Southern gentleman! He will find congenial souls among Lincoln's hordes, I reckon."

The speaker evidently recognized the fact that a man with a bill to collect would derive very little benefit from Southern hoards, at any rate.

A close observer might have noticed that Miss Libby's cheeks betrayed the faintest tint of virgin wine at this last speech of her father's; but as it is not my business to inquire the wine wherefore of everything, I shall say no more about that at present.

While speaking, the paternal Ordeth had placed his hand unconsciously as it were on the knob of the door; and now, with a sudden movement, he opened the door. Or rather, he simply turned the knob; for the door fairly forced itself open against him, and there unexpectedly tumbled half way into the room a somewhat venerable person from Afric's sunny fountains. From the manner in which this colored person fell across the sill, it was evident that he had been upon his knees the instant before.

The ladies uttered little shrieks and then went on with their hoe-cake; but Mr. Ordeth viewed the intruder with a glance of suspicion.

"Jocko, you black reskel!" said he, in a suppressed manner, "what are you doing here?"

The oppressed African, who, like most slaves was pious, rose to his feet with touching humility, and said he:

"Ise watchin', Mars'r, for de Angel of de Lor'."

"Oh," returned the haughty Virginian, scorning to show how deeply he was affected, "you're watchin' for that, are you?"

"Yes, Mars'r," said the attached slave; "and I hab pray dat my good Mars'r may gib up drinkin' and be one of the good angels too. Oh, Mars'r Ordeth, I hab wrastle much for you in prayer."

I know not how that slaveholder's heart was affected by this beautiful instance of his humble bondman's devotion; but I do know, mon ami, that he reached forth his right hand, seized the chattel by the collar, and was heard to carry on a blasphemous conversation with him for the space of fifteen minutes thereafter, in the hall.

CHAPTER II.—"ROBERT, ROBERT TOI QUE J'AIME."

In a room directly over the one last mentioned—a room whose only furniture was a rude bedstead, a looking-glass with a writing-table under it and a gas-bracket extending half way across it, and a lounge extemporized from three tea-boxes and a quilt—stood Mr. Bob Peters, aged twenty-three, a bachelor and a fellow man. The time was just twenty-four hours after the scene depicted in my first chapter, and as the rays of the sunny Southern sun poured through a window upon the figure of Mr. Bob Peters, they revealed an individual who was evidently unable, just then, to make a raise himself.

Robert was a tall, smooth-faced, good-natured-looking youth, wearing a coat that buttoned up to his very chin and was painfully shiney at its various angles, corners, and button-holes; a pair of inexpressibles very roomy and equally glossy about the knees; a brace of carpet slippers, and (although indoors) a hat in a "Marie Stuart" condition. That is to say, the style of hat worn thus inappropriately by Mr. Bob Peters, corresponded to a fashion in vogue with the ladies not long ago, when the latter imagined that a bonnet very much mashed down in front caused each and all of them to present a touching and life-like resemblance to the unfortunate Queen of Scots. In fact, this bonnet did really give them just about such a frightened look as they might be supposed to wear should some modern Elizabeth Tudor order them all to instant execution.

Adding to the consideration of Mr. Bob Peters' severely straitened costume the fact that he was smoking an incredibly cheap segar, it is reasonable to infer that he was rather hard-up when awake and not much troubled with soft down when asleep.

Viewing Mr. Bob Peters financially and judging him by a golden rule, one could see about him considerable that was due unto others, as each of the others was likely to be dun unto him.

"Bless my soul!" soliloquized Mr. Bob Peters, hastily turning from a long and profound contemplation of himself in the mirror and commencing to pace noiselessly up and down the room,—"here's misery! Shut up in the garret of one of the First Families, with a chap thirsting for my blood at the head of the domestic circle down stairs, and the whole Confederacy ready to bolt me without salt—which is very dear here just now. Here's a situation for an unmarried man!" exclaimed Mr. Bob Peters, insanely tearing his "Marie Stuart" from his head and bitterly crunching it in his hand—"confined here as a prisoner by the young woman of my affections to save my life from her own father's sanguinary designs. Upon my soul!" groaned Mr. Bob Peters, drearily slapping his left leg, "it's enough to make me take to drinking, and I—"

"Dear Bob!"

Were you ever awakened from a horrid nightmare dream of capital punishment and sudden death, mon ami, by the soft, persuasive voice of woman calling you to a breakfast of etherial rolls and new-born eggs? If so, you can understand the feelings of Mr. Peters when these fond words roused him from his terrible reverie.

He spun blithely round on his dexter heel, absorbed the faithful Libby to his manly breast, and incontinently kissed for his lips a coating of lustrous bandoline from the head of the fashionable maiden.

"Oh bliss!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Peters, standing on one foot by way of intensifying the sensation, "my angel visits me in my dungeon, as angels visited other good men in the Scriptures."

"Oh Bob, how you do smell of smoke," said the devoted Libby.

"And thanks to your thoughtfulness for the regalias which have so lightened my lonely hours, since the day when you brought me up to this room and then told a virtuous and unsuspecting police that I had fled in the direction of the aurora borealis. By the way Libby," said Mr. Bob Peters, thoughtfully, "my segar-lighters are all out, and if you could make me a few more out of the rest of those Confederate Treasury Notes—"

"I will, I will," responded Miss Ordeth, lifting first one white shoulder and then the other, as though she would thereby work down her waist more firmly into the belt formed by Mr. Bob Peters' right arm; "but now, dear Bob, we must think of how you are to be got safely away from this house and out of the city. If my pa should find out that you have been here all this time, when he thought you were running for dear life, he would—I really believe"—said Miss Libby Ordeth, with increasing eyes, "that he would actually apply the torch to me without waiting for the Yankees!"

Mr. Bob Peters shuddered and turned pale, barely saving himself from fainting by clasping his companion more tightly and leaning heavily against her lips.

The infatuated girl did not see the face peering in through the half open door behind her, as she continued:—

"Quarter-past twelve is the hour, Bob, though I can't say on what night it shall be, yet. You must be already to start on any night, and in the meantime our meetings are, if possible, to be continued."

"You say that quarter-past twelve is the hour?" observed Mr. Peters, reflectively, patting the head against his shoulder in a somewhat paternal manner.

"Yes, dear Bob; and I wish I could be sure of pa's going to bed earlier than that; for I know it will be hard for you to go out into the street at that time of night. You are not accustomed to such late hours at home."

And, indeed, he was not; for Mr. Bob Peters' "hours" at home were apt to be considerably later, especially when he went into morning for some dear friend.

"Sweet innocence!" exclaimed the young man, much affected by this evidence of thoughtfulness in his behalf, "your kindness almost makes me forget the treatment I have experienced at the hands of your being's author."

"I think you can get off next Sunday night," continued Libby, "if brother is sergeant of the guard; for he promised to see that you got across the bridge and past the patrol. Jocko will open the street door for you when you start: and I want you to send me word, if you can, after you get to New-York, what kind of bonnets they're going to wear this summer."

"Dear girl!" murmured Bob, fondly, "I'll find out the style and mention it to one of our Generals, who will let you know by note, as soon as he arrives here."

"Dear Bob!—but I must go now. Is there anything I can send you to make you more comfortable?"

As they stood there facing each other, Mr. Bob Peters closed his right eye for an instant, and suffered the muscles of his month to relax, thereby expressing some want too deep for words.

"You shall have it," said the young girl, turning to leave the room. At the door she was met by Jocko, who entered as she passed out, for the ostensible purpose of removing the remains of the captive's recent surreptitious breakfast.

The sound of the maiden's light footsteps soon died away in the passage, like the vibrations of a high-strung instrument in a passage of music, and the two men stood alone together.

There they were—the White and the Black; the one a freeman in all save being deprived of his liberty; the other a slave in all save being unrestricted of his freedom. Who could tell what was working in the mind of each? Who should draw the line between those men, when all was dark for the white and a luckless wight was the black? Who should say that the white man was anything better than the black man, that the latter should bear the bonds of slavery—bonds as hard to bear even as Confederate bonds? Look at inanimate nature. Is it not the White of an egg that bears the yolk? Then why should the white man turn the yoke altogether over to the black man? But I must refuse to follow out this great metaphysical question any further. The weather is too warm. I will leave it to the Awful and Unfathomable German Mind, which delights to toy heavily with the elephants of Thought.

"Mars'r," said Jocko, handing a folded paper to the fugitive prisoner, "dis was gub to me for you by my chile Efrum, dat b'longs to Missus Adams; and I hope, Mas'r, dat you will read um with fear an' trem'lin, for the Lor' is very good to let you lib in your great sins, Mars'r."

How beautiful, mon ami, is that strong spirit of piety we often find developed in the uncultivated, like the rich oyster found on the barren sea-shore. Taken in connection with the children of Ham, it is as mustard to a sandwich, for moving us to occasional tears.

Mr. Bob Peters waved the faithful black from his presence, and read the note, which ran thus:

"Mr. Peters,—Sir:—Though, as a daughter of the Sonny South, I cannot but regard you as a traitor to our country, the memory of past hours in my soul-life induces me to act toward you as a heart-friend. I have heard, through those faithful beings of which your friends would rob and murder us, that you are a prisoner, and will save you. Contrive to get out of the house in some way on Sunday (to-morrow) evening, at a quarter of twelve, and you will find those waiting for you who will deliver you for a time from our vengeance. It is the impulsive heart-throb of a weak woman that bids me do this—not the spirit-aspiration of the Southern daughter.

"Eve Adams."

Mr. Bob Peters lowered the hand holding the note until it rested heavily on his right knee, and gazed before him, as he sat on his couch, with a puzzled expression of countenance. He had been sitting in this way, perfectly motionless, for five minutes perhaps, when the door was gently pushed open a few inches, a dainty white hand came through the aperture, deposited a mysterious black bottle on the floor very softly, and disappeared as it came. In an instant, Mr. Peters sprang to his feet, dashed the note to the ground, seized the bottle, and immediately applied it to his lips with great enthusiasm.

His Mistress had understood that last subtle glance he gave her. With the wonderful insight of man's deeper nature peculiar to girls about eighteen years old, she had divined the one thing required to make the captive comfortable.

Oh, woman, woman! In the language of a revised poet—

CHAPTER III.—THE WIDOW'S MITE.

The Adamses resided in one of the aristocratic by ways crossing Main Street, and were directly descended from those distinguished and chivalric anciens pauvres of the Old Dominion, who boasted the blood of the English cavaliers, and were a terror to their foes and creditors. Adams, the husband and father, was a fine specimen of the Southern gentleman in his day, possessing an estate in Louisa County, so completely covered with mortgages that no heir could get to it, and having won great fame by inventing an entirely new and singularly humorous oath for the benefit of a Yankee governess, when that despised hireling presumed to ask for a portion of her last year's salary. He might have lived to a green old age, but for the extraordinary joy he experienced at having negotiated a second mortgage on some property not worth quite half the first, which filled this worthy man with such exceeding great joy, that he drank rather more at a sitting than would start an ordinary hotel-bar, and died soon after of delirium tremens, as such noble and chivalric souls are very apt to do. The family left by the lamented Adams, consisting of a wife and one child—a daughter, at once assumed the most becoming style of mourning, moved in a funeral procession through society for six months, and then resigned themselves to the will of Providence with that beautiful cheerfulness which may either denote a high order of Christianity, or a low order of memory, as the case may be.

At the period of which the present veracious history treats, the bereaved mother and daughter were living in subdued style in the locality designated above. Among their most intimate associates were the Ordeths, between whose family and theirs there existed that pleasing and kindly familiarity which permits the most open recognition of mutual virtues in society and the most searching criticism of individual weaknesses at home. The Adamses and Ordeths met at each other's houses with gushes of endearment that edified all beholders; and if Miss Eve said to her mother on their way home from church that Libby Ordeth looked like a perfect fright in that ridiculous new bonnet of hers, it was only because her affectionate heart felt a pang at seeing her bosom-friend appear to less advantage than her own self-sacrificing self.

It is a touching peculiarity of this modern friendship, mon ami, that a majority of the errors its fairest votaries detect in each other, are those of the head—not of the heart. Eve Adams, whose diminutive size had given occasion to the mot by which she was denominated the "Widow's Mite," was calling at the Ordeths when Mr. Bob Peters first came in under a flag of truce from Fortress Monroe, and was witness to the chivalric reception accorded to that gentleman by his relatives, before his pecuniary mission was known. In the exuberance of his nature, Mr. Peters had kissed her with the rest of the family, and from the moment of receiving that chaste salutation, Eve had selected the Northern stranger as her hero in that ideal novel of spiritual yellow-covers in which all maidens live, and move and have their beings until stern reality bursts upon them in the shape of a husband or a snub.

From thenceforth she was a frequent visitor at the Ordeths, and laid close siege to the gay Robert's heart with all the languishment deemed necessary in such cases, and a tremendous flirtation was going on before the maiden discovered that the affections of the youth were already given to another. Then came a revulsion of feeling, opening the eyes of the Widow's Mite to the fact that Mr. Bob Peters was a thieving abolitionist, unworthy the toleration of any true daughter of the South. After this overpowering revelation, it was the first thought of Eve Adams to at once inform the festive Peters of the utter detestation in which she held him, and a favorable opportunity soon offered. At a social gathering at the Ordeth's, she had withdrawn for a moment to an ante-room, for the purpose of drawing from her bosom an elegant silver snuff-box, dipping therein a small brush, and subsequently applying the same to her pearly teeth, when Mr. Bob Peters entered unannounced, and agreeably demanded a "pinch." The situation was favorable to an avowal of enmity, and a suitable expression was rising to the lips of the maiden, when the thought of a still keener revenge kept her silent, and she contented herself with a temporary sneer and a majestic exit from the apartment.

It was soon after this incident that Mr. Bob Peters' presentation to Mr. Ordeth of the bill for furniture which he had been empowered to collect by a New York house, reminded the latter that it was his duty, as a patriot, to sacrifice even his cousin's son for the good of the Confederacy. With the stern self-devotion of an ancient Roman, Mr. Ordeth not only accused his hapless relative of flagrant Abolitionism, but at once made arrangements with the military authorities for that relative's immediate incarceration as an enemy to the Commonwealth. An enemy to the Commonwealth of Virginia must be indeed an unnatural wretch; for no such wealth is known to be in existence just now, and enmity to the dead is a thing inexcusable. It was a crime of which Mr. Bob Peters was incapable; yet would he have suffered for it, had not the devoted Libby concealed him in the hour of danger.

Of this concealment, Miss Eve had learned from Efrum, the son of Jocko, though she knew not how long it was to be continued.

CHAPTER IV.—"TWO HEARTS THAT BEAT AS ONE."

Several of the Richmond churches were opened that Sunday night, and thither repaired many of the Cottonocracy, devotional children of Bale, to implore Providence in behalf of an army whose heroes have generally appeared, in the eyes of the Federal troops, to be wholly Leave-ites. The recent intelligence of "another confederate victory," at Williamsburg, had added a finishing touch to the panic created by reports of the triumphal retreat from Yorktown previously received, and the fervor of Richmond's piety on that evening was eminently worthy of a city liable at any moment to be cannonized. The reverend clergy of the rebel capital selected their texts from Exodus by instinct, as it were, and proved so conclusively that the Yankee invader was no man, that the listening congregations were impressed with an instructive and repentant sense of their own wickedness, (for they are the wicked who invariably flee when "no man" pursueth,) and several members evinced their new-born disgust at this sinful world by resolutely closing their eyes upon it at once.

In his pew sat Mr. Victor E. Ordeth, with his wife and son, the latter a member of the Richmond Home Guard. Stiff and erect he sat, like a solemn note of admiration in a printer's case, ready to be used at the end of any sounding passages, suffering an expression of weighty approval to cross his countenance when the preacher hoped the same planets might not thereafter be destined to shine on the North and the South.

And well he might; for there had been something in the late capture of New Orleans and other ports by the Union fleets to impress the Southern mind with no small dread of the North's tar.

Libby remained at home under plea of sick-headache; but no sooner were her parents fairly out of the house, than said plea proved to be entirely invalid. At least, the young lady darted to her own private room in a very sprightly manner, brought out from thence a small package, and finally repaired to the apartment wherein Mr. Bob Peters kept solitary vigils and a bright lookout. Before passing in, however, she paused to have a few words with the faithful Jocko, whom she discovered on his knees before the door of the captive's cell, with his right eye slightly to the left of the knob.

"Jocko!" she exclaimed, reproachfully, "what are you doing here, you ridiculous thing?"

"Miss Libby," said the humble servitor, looming dimly in the shadow of the hall as he slowly arose from his feet, "Ise ben prayin' dat you might become a christian, and one ob these days, when de great Hallelugerum come, hab wings and a harp."

Scarcely were these affecting words uttered, when Mr. Peters tore open the door rather disrespectfully, so greatly discomposing the devoted black that the latter incontinently fled.

"My dear girl," said Bob, leading his fair visitor into the room, "I'm delighted to see you. The shutters are up, the gas is lit, and I'm prepared to do the sentimental. Oh-um-m—Lubin's Extracts!" ejaculated Mr. Bob Peters. For he had kissed her.

"There, dear Robert, don't be so absurd. You know you are going to leave us to-night, and I have brought you—" here Libby blushed with that exquisitely ingenuous emotion which is excited by the consciousness of benefiting one we love—"I have brought you some things that may be of use on your journey. You won't be angry with me for it, will you, dear Bob? There's a smoking cap, and a pair of crochet slippers, and some drawing pencils, and a volume of Tupper."

"My darling Libby!" remarked the deeply affected Robert, alighting on those tempting lips once more. "But did you think, love—did you think to put a quart of ice-cream and a few hair-pins in the package?"

"Why, no."

"Ah, well," said Mr. Bob Peters, abstractedly, "I suppose I can buy them on the road."

Silence, disturbed only by the beating of those two hearts, reigned for a few seconds, then—

"Bob," said Libby, looking shyly up to him, "we shall be very happy when we are married and live North?"

"Yes, indeed," said Bob.

"We'll live in such a beautiful house on Fifth Avenue, dear, and have such nice things. Because, you know, you can make so much money by your writings."

"Millions! my love," said Mr. Bob Peters, with sudden and wonderful quietude of tone. "When I left New York prose was bringing two dollars for seven pounds in the heavy dailies, and philosophical poetry quoted at six shillings a yard, and no hexameters allowed except for Emerson and Homer. Ah!" said Mr. Peters, his melancholy deepening rapidly to bitterness, "my last poem sickened me. It was called 'Dirge: addressed to a lady after witnessing the Drama of the "Toodles,"' and commenced in this way:

"How pretty!" said Libby.

"Yes, my dear," responded Mr. Peters, somewhat gloomily; "but because I used 'dim' to rhyme with 'limn,' all the papers credited it to General Morris."

Recollections of this flagrant piece of injustice so affected Mr. Bob Peters, that he smote his breast and called himself a miserable man. "I really don't know but I'd better stay here and be hung like a respectable patriot," murmured the desolated young man.

"How absurd!" exclaimed the young lady, "you will be glad enough to get away to-night. Remember, now, you are to start down stairs at quarter-past Twelve, precisely, and Jocko will open the front door for you. Then go straight to the bridge, where you will find my brother, who will get you by the guard."

"That reminds me," observed Mr. Peters, "what time is it? I must set my repeater."

Libby consulted her watch and answered that it was half-past eight, whereupon Mr. Bob Peters fished from his fob a vast silver conglomeration, and having wound it up with a noise like that of a distant coffee mill, and set it correctly, proceeded to hang it, for convenient reference, upon the gas-branch across the mirror.

"Dear Bob, good bye."

"Fare thee well, and if for ever, still remember me," responded Mr. Peters, with some vagueness.

"We shall meet again?" said Libby, lingering.

"If I did not believe it," replied Mr. Bob Peters, with vehemence, "I should at once proceed to kill myself at your feet, covering the walls and furniture of the apartment with my gore."

"God bless you, Bob."

They parted wiping their mouths. Miss Ordeth went down stairs in tears, had a fit of hysterics on the sofa, and fell asleep with her head in the card basket.

CHAPTER V.—BETRAYED INNOCENCE.

There he slumbered on that rude lounge, with his head upon his hands and his hands under his head. A man, like you—or me—or any other man. Did you ever notice how you always keep your eyes shut when you are asleep? The lids come down over your orbs, your soul's windows, like night over the sun. You shall have visions of Heaven, or Hades, according to what you had for supper. Lobster salad, or truffles, will act upon a sleeping man's great, dark soul, like one of Page's pictures on the open eye. Make it see light blue landscapes, and pallid faces looking out of pink distances. You think that young man there is sleeping upon a rude couch? No. He is sleeping upon something not palpable to your worldly eyes nor mine; he is sleeping upon an empty stomach. You dare not pity him. His scornful, stern man's soul would wither you if you talked to him of compassion. Such is man. An animal. A worm of the dust. Yet proud. Ha! you know it. You blush for your unworthy thought. Such is woman. Something aroused the sleeper suddenly. It might have been an angel's whisper, or the kiss of an insect. He sprang to his feet, shook himself, and mentally declared that he had come pretty near getting asleep. The idea was rational.

"By all that's blue! it can't be, though it is, by Jupiter!"

The gas was still burning brightly. Mr. Bob Peters had caught sight of his watch as it was reflected in the mirror, with the hands pointing to a quarter past Twelve. With great rapidity he grasped the repeater, stabbed it into his fob, crushed his demoralized hat upon his head, looked regretfully about the room, turned off the gas, and in another moment was stealthily groping his way down stairs, toward the front door. The door yielded to his hand, but no Jocko was there. "I suppose," murmured Mr. Peters to himself, "I suppose the faithful fellow is praying for me somewhere in the kitchen, with his hands resting on a jar of sweetmeats. Ah! I ought to be a better man than I am." With this excellent moral reflection, Mr. Bob Peters stepped into the street and faced boldly for the path to freedom; but at the very first corner his road was barred by two individuals in military caps and the first stage of intoxication.

"Aryupeters—eters!" said one, who was evidently desirous of having but a single word with him.

"With a Bob," replied the fugitive sententiously.

"Aw' ri', then," observed the two in chorus, and Mr. Peters quickly found himself attended on either side by guardians whose affectionate manner of monopolizing his arms suggested a civil process of the most uncivil sort.

"Treachery!" he exclaimed, struggling fiercely. The twain held him tightly, however, with the strength of tight-uns, and his exertion only caused them to venture divers pleasant oaths concerning the destiny of his eyes.

Onward they dragged him, down Broad street and up half a dozen other streets, until a certain rebel institution was gained. "In with'm," said one of his captors; and they hurried him past a sentry and through a hall into a long, low room, where half a dozen miserable candles stuck up against the walls revealed a dismal company of over a hundred—some stretched upon the floor, some standing about, and others clustered around what appeared to be a cot in one corner.

"Is this the Confederate Congress?" asked the astonished Bob, as his captors left him, turning the key and adjusting various bolts as they went out.

"It's Libby's pork-packing-house," answered the prisoner nearest him, "and you're jugged, I suppose, as a spy."

"Pork-packing!" ejaculated the bewildered Bob. "Why, this is treating me like a hog."

Several prisoners at once gave in their adhesion to this logical premise.

"Here's a case of betrayed innocence!" soliloquized Mr. Bob Peters, bitterly, "I've trusted to Libby, and Libby's taken me in."—

"I'm going to be exchanged, I tell you!"

The sound came from the cot in the corner, and as the crowd in that direction opened for a moment, the new-comer beheld a sight that, for a time, made him forget his own troubles. A tall, gaunt man in ragged, Zouave uniform was reclining upon his elbow on the miserable pallet, the pale, dismal light of the candles disclosing a ghastly wound on his right temple, from which the blood was trickling down upon his rusty and matted beard.

"I'm going to be exchanged, I tell you!" he exclaimed, waving the others away with his left hand and glaring directly at Bob. "I've been here a whole year, and Eighty's boys wants me back; and I'm going to be exchanged."

"The poor fellow was shot by one of the sentries this morning. He's from a New York regiment, and has been a prisoner ever since Bull Run," whispered one of the unfortunates to Bob.

The latter approached the wounded man and kindly asked; "Can I do anything for you, old fellow?"

The dying Zouave regarded him with a ghastly smile; "Yes," said he, "you can go down to Eighty's truck house and take care of little Jake till I'm exchanged. Will you, bub, will you?"

"Is Jake your child?" asked Bob.

"No," responded the Zouave, softly, "it's only a little yaller dorg. I aint got no wife, nor child, nor no friend except the masheen and little Jake. He's petty as a picture, bub, and he's slept with me many a gay old night around Catherine Market—he has. You'll be kind to him, bub, won't you?"

"Here! what's this noise about? What are yes doin' with lights this time ernight? I'll soon stop his Yankee groaning," were the words of a brutal keeper, who had just come in and was roughly elbowing his way toward the cot.

"Stand off, you hound!" shouted Bob, throwing himself between the keeper and the dying soldier. "Stand off!" growled the prisoners, fiercely crowding upon the intruder with murder in their faces.

"Hark!" said the Zouave, leaning listfully forward, "there goes the Hall bell—one—two—three——" His features lighted up as with the glow of a conflagration; his lips opened—

"Fire! Fire! Fire!"

And the Zouave fell back upon the cot—dead.

The keeper crawled forward like a whipped hound, and eyed the outstretched form with a face full of fear:

"Exchanged at last, by G—d!"

True, O traitorous hireling! and by God alone. For when that honest, loyal soul went out, there came to take its place an Avenging Spirit, that shall not cease to call on Heaven for vengeance on the Southern murderer until the cowardly stain of fifty thousand murders, such as this, are washed out in a terrible atonement.

"Poor little Jake," murmured Mr. Bob Peters, "I wonder if he's a terrier." Then, turning to the keeper,—"How long is my imprisonment in this terrible place to be continued?"

The keeper eyed the querist with no very amiable expression, "You'll stay here," said he, "until you take the Oath, I reckon."

"In that case, my native land, good night," responded the interesting captive, Byronically; "my incarceration will terminate with an epitaph—'Hic Jacet Robert Peters. A victim of miss-placed confidence. He died young'—Jailor, you are affected. Accept a quarter!"

The Cerberus clutched the proffered coin and eyed it with feverish intensity. It was evidently the first quarter he had seen since the commencement of his services in that hole. The man's better nature was touched. "Hist!" he said, drawing Mr. Peters aside and speaking in a whisper: "I can no longer conceal the truth. I am a Southern Union man."

It is a beautiful peculiarity of our common nature, mon ami, that crime never sinks so deeply nor perversion spreads so obstinately in the human soul, but there is still a deeper current of normal rectitude responsive to the force of currency. That this was known to the ancients, is evinced by the antique custom of placing coins on the eyes of the dead, thereby signifying to all concerned that, whatever faults might have perished with the deceased, de mortuis nil nisi bonum.

"Can't I have a room to myself?" asked Bob, after a short pause.

"Follow me," was the response; and he followed the keeper through a crowd of curious prisoners, up a stair-way against a wall, to a room on the next floor. The keeper opened the door with a key from one of his pockets, and led the way into an apartment whose only furniture was a bed, a ricketty chair and a bit of looking-glass on a shelf.

"I sleep here sometimes myself," said the keeper; "but you shall stay here for a small rent. Make yourself comfortable."

"Stop a minute," said Bob, as the man turned to leave. "Do you know how I came to be arrested?"

"I don't know exactly," was the answer; "but I believe you was informed upon by some woman. Good night. Here's the candle."

The prisoner cast himself upon the bed, as the key grated again in the lock, and was fast asleep before the poor fellows down stairs had extinguished their miserable lights.

In the morning the friendly keeper brought him his breakfast, consisting of a cup of something very much like "sacred soil" after a heavy rain, two geological biscuits and a copy of the Richmond Whig.

"What do you call this stuff?" asked Mr. Peters, ruefully eyeing the contents of the cup.

"Coffee," replied the keeper, blandly, "real Mocha."

Mr. Peters was silent. To call such fluid Mocha was sheer mockery.

The biscuits dispatched and the coffee defied, the captive betook himself to deep and admiring contemplation of the newspaper; and was deriving much valuable instruction from an article written to prove how skilfully and ingeniously the Southern Confederacy had struck a telling blow at its ruthless invaders by strategetically surrendering Norfolk, when an early visitor was admitted. Said visitor was a young man contained in a picturesquely-tattered uniform, with a fatigue cap on his head and a rusty sword rattling at his heels.

"Bob, my boy," said he, "how the mischief did you get into this scrape?"

"This is some of your family's Chivalry," responded Mr. Peters, shortly.

"My governor certainly did come it over you a little," observed the visitor, who was no other than the younger Ordeth; "but you might have gone off safely enough if you'd been at the bridge at quarter-past Twelve, as you were told. I don't like the governor's style any more than you do, and if you had come to time I could have passed you out of the lines easily enough."

"I did come to time," answered Bob, with great bitterness, "and a pretty time of night it was. How did I get into this scrape? The Southern Confederacy brought me here. I've had enough of you and your family. It affords me satisfaction to contemplate a perspective in which your family are attending a funeral of one of their number whose demise would be attended with funeral honors, if all his comrades were not engaged in the work of running away from McClellan."

Mr. Peters hazarded this cutting insinuation of the future with an expression of countenance rigidly severe.

"But, my dear boy, there is some mistake. You—"

"Enough, Sir!"

"Oh, very well; if you won't you won't," exclaimed the Confederate youth, growing very red in the face. "All I have to say is, that I have done my part as your friend. If you had been at the bridge at quarter-past Twelve last night, you might be back among the Yankees now. And, let me tell you, those same Yankees will never conquer the South."

"Perhaps not," said Mr. Peters, ironically.

"One of our officers has just invented a new gun that will soon teach the North manners," continued the Confederate, with increasing heat. "It throws one-hundred-pound balls as fast as a man can turn the handle."

"Ah!" said Bob, sneeringly.

"Yes; and it has but one defect."

"What's that?" asked Bob, with some appearance of interest.

"The handle won't turn!" ejaculated the young Virginian, darting hastily from the room to hide his emotion.

Mr. Peters looked vaguely after the retreating form of the sensitive youth, and as one of the keepers relocked the door again from the outside, his face sank upon his hands. What did his visitor mean by accusing him of not making his appearance at the appointed time? It was exactly quarter-past Twelve when he left the house. "I see how it is," murmured Mr. Peters, between his hands; "the boy has been taking something hot."

CHAPTER VI.—ANOTHER VISITOR.

The ladies were taking their usual promenade through the main corridor of the jail, curiously gazing at times through the newly-grated door at the prisoners in the main room, and seasoning their morning gossip with piquant observations on the probable execution of the horrid creatures there confined. Mrs. Peyton took occasion to inform Mrs. Mason that she wouldn't pass a day without taking a look at the wretches for all the world; and Mrs. Mason informed Mrs. Peyton that her life would hardly be endurable if she did not live in hope of seeing all the Abolitionists there yet. Here young Mr. Baron ventured to intimate that the Yankee prisoners were fortunate in being favored with such an array of fair before them; for which he was saluted as an "absurd thing," and received a shower of taps from adjacent fans.

Miss Adams led her companion, a neighbor's child, to where a keeper was leaning idly against the wall.

"Are these all your prisoners?" she asked.

"All but one that was taken last night and is up stairs," replied the official.

"Is that one on exhibition?"

"I reckon he is, if you want to see him."

"Well," said Miss Adams, with an assumption of indifference, "I don't know that it's worth while; but—well, I reckon I will look at him."

"This way, then, if you please," said the keeper, leading the way up an adjacent flight of stairs and conducting the fair one to the room occupied by Mr. Peters.

Bob was gazing gloomily out of the window and did not recognize the presence of his new guests until the end of a parasol touched his shoulder.

"Miss Adams!" he exclaimed, offering his hand.

The young lady tossed her head haughtily:

"I don't wish to shake hands with an enemy of my country, sir."

"I see," said Bob, coolly, "the presence of a third party obliges us to vail our emotions. Keeper, leave the saloon."

"Pay no attention to him, Keeper," retorted Eve, indignantly, "I wish your attendance."

Not at all abashed by the severity of her tone, Mr. Peters nodded to the officer and smiled pleasantly.

"Then I must expose you with a witness to it," he said, good-naturedly; "you are offended, Miss Eve because I did not comply with your kind note and meet your friends at a quarter-of Twelve, instead of walking straight into trouble at quarter-past, as I did."

"You are beneath my notice," was the answer of Miss Adams; "but since you choose to speak so I must explain myself to this good man here. You are indebted to me for your present situation. I am a Southern woman, sir, and it was my duty as a Southerner, to see that you did not escape to injure our cause by telling some of your Northern falsehoods about us. I wrote you the note you speak of in order that you might be drawn from your hiding place, and also one to the authorities putting them on the watch. I may be a woman, but I have the heart of a man."

If Miss Adams did not have the heart of a man it was owing to no neglect on her part of any possible means to catch such a heart. That is to say, all her dearest and most intimate female friends said so.

Her speech was evidently intended to impress the prisoner with a torturing sense of woman's vengeance, but, contrary to her expectation, Mr. Peters received it with the utmost complacency. In fact, he even evinced a playful disposition and favored the attentive keeper with an insidious wink.

"I don't doubt that your intentions were excellent, Miss Eve," said Mr. Bob Peters, with an air of great enjoyment; "but they did not work as well as your affectionate heart designed. Because—you see—I did'nt come out at a quarter of Twelve at all, nor did I follow any of your directions. Oh, no! It was just quarter-past Twelve by my repeater when I departed from my late residence, and it's my private opinion that your dear friend, Miss Ordeth, had the privilege of being my adviser on that nocturnal occasion. Don't let your sensitive soul be afflicted with the thought that you have wronged confiding innocence," added Bob, pathetically, "for I do assure you that you are as guiltless as the child unborn."

"What do you mean, sir?" asked Eve, in some haste; "were you not arrested at a quarter of Twelve?"

"Why no!" said Bob. "Don't I tell you that I didn't break cover until quarter-past?"

"Well, sir," snarled Eve, with no little irritation, "you're here at any rate, and I hope you'll enjoy the society of your Yankee friends down stairs. I hope you'll all be hung. I do."

And the injured fair swept magnificently from the room, dragging with her the neighbor's child, and leaving Mr. Peters alone with the keeper.

"I say, she's a spunky one," remarked the latter. "It's a pity you really did'nt wait till quarter-past. I would'nt trust a woman with such eyes as hers—I would'nt."

"And I didn't trust them," said Bob. "It was full quarter-past by my repeater when I came out, and if I'm betrayed it's by another woman."

"Oh, come now," put in the keeper, deprecatingly, "it's all right, you know, between us two. It was'nt but quarter-past when I locked you in here, you know."

"What!" exclaimed Bob.

"Fact," said the keeper.

Mr. Peters deliberately drew out his watch and held it up in full view.

"By all that's true!" said Bob, "it was quarter-past Twelve by that repeater before I was taken last night."

The rebel official looked steadily into the eyes of his prisoner for a moment, and then withdrew hurriedly and in silence. He evidently mistrusted the sincerity of Mr. Peters, or believed that a man with such a fast watch was too much ahead of his time to be trusted without a watch of a different kind.

CHAPTER VII.—UNION SENTIMENT DEVELOPING.

If some modern Burton would supply the world with an Anatomy of Patriotism, mon ami, I am inclined to believe that his first discovery in the process of dissection would be, that the modern quality of that name is essentially lacking in the anatomical composite of back-bone. Ordinary patriotism in practice, as far as I have been able to observe it, is equivalent, in general aspect and result, to an irresistible force in contact with an immovable body, those who are chiefly carried away with it metaphorically being the last to yield to its impulsion personally. In short, the quality appears to be a sentiment rather than a motive in its character, and moves us to inspire others rather oftener than it inspires us to move ourselves.

Mr. Victor E. Ordeth was a patriot in the conventional sense of the term, and when the Southern heart was first fired he took a very large ember to his own bosom. None could be more ready to repudiate all their Northern debts than was Mr. Ordeth to repudiate his, and his deadly hatred of the Abolitionist was only equaled by that of a New England man owning a colored drayman, and living next door to him. "We will raise a million of soldiers if need be," said the chivalrous Virginian at a public meeting in Richmond, "and sacrifice our last crust." After which he went comfortably home and growled very much at the dampness of his slippers and the barely perceptible chill in his buttered toast. Great admiration was evoked on all sides by this spirited conduct, and when he finally donated one hundred dollars of his creditors' money to the Volunteer fund, there was some talk of making him a brigadier; but it happened to leak out that he knew something of military business from early study, and, of course, that project had to be given up. A brigadier with military capability would be an anomaly indeed!

And so, this self-sacrificed gentleman meekly wore his honors in private life, his patriotism deepening and intensifying until it attained the pitch of verbal perfection demonstrated in the first chapter of this veracious narrative. Suddenly, however, this patriotism suffered what its possessor's pocket did not—a "sea change": the Confiscation Act passed by the Congress of the United States induced Mr. Ordeth to consider seriously what might possibly happen to a certain little property of his near Danville, in the event of certain Union achievements; and the news of McClellan's advance to within five miles of Richmond, did not tend to increase the patriotic fervor of this chivalrous Virginian.

It was on the second morning after the summary incarceration of Mr. Bob Peters, that Mr. Ordeth peremptorily called for his newspaper, and, having elevated his feet upon the window sill, proceeded to read the more humorous articles of the journal in question, which were chiefly devoted to the discussion of divers excellent plans for invading the North in one column, and burning Richmond in the next. The only other person in the apartment at the time was Mrs. Ordeth, who turned very pale when her lord took up his paper, and watched him as he read, with considerable agitation. She was evidently expecting an explosion, and it came.

Having perused with mitigated satisfaction a leader on the sublime nobility of soul evidenced by the people who destroyed their city at the approach of the enemy, Mr. Ordeth turned to the Local Department of the reduced sheet before him, and was electrified at the discovery therein of a full and accurate account of the arrest of "one Robert Peters, supposed to be a Yankee spy, who is said to have found refuge for some time past in the house of a well-known citizen, and who was seized at the instigation of a devoted Daughter of the South, who, by a pardonable device, lured him from his hiding place for that purpose. But for the disordered state of things just now, the citizen said to have harbored this fellow would be called to account for his equivocal concern in the matter."

The paper dropped from the hands of Mr. Ordeth, and he stared at his wife in utter bewilderment.

"Don't be angry with us, Victor!" exclaimed that lady, tremblingly; for she had seen the paper and anticipated what was coming. "Libby hid poor Bob away because she didn't want to see one of our own relations taken and hung, and when she told me of it I didn't dare to tell you."

"And do you mean to tell me that it was in my house he was secreted?" asked the Virginian, tragically.

"Yes, my dear, up-stairs, you know."

This unexampled revelation might have produced a scene, had not the door been opened at the moment by Jocko, who unceremoniously entered with a folded paper in his hand.

"Dis wus brung for you, Mars'r, by de angel ob de—I mean by de gemman wid gold on he shoulder."

The master hastily snatched the paper from the dutiful black, waved him magisterially from the presence, and found himself ordered to report on the following morning for military duty at the headquarters of the military commandant, Richmond. A new draft was ordered!

Passing the paper to his wife, without a word of comment, Mr. Ordeth commenced to pace the room with long and rapid strides. Finally, he stopped short before his lady's chair:—

"I am beginning to think," said he, coolly, "that the Union is best for the South, after all."

"Yes, my dear."

"And we must be off for Danville this very afternoon."

"Oh!"

A pause, and then—

"I was hasty about Bob. My friend, General Evans, has just come in from Leesburg. I must explain this matter to him and get Bob discharged; for Bob may be of great service to us, my dear, when the Yankees take possession."

Mrs. Ordeth understood her husband well enough to appreciate this remarkable change in his sentiments, and refrained from exhibiting any astonishment at this speech. She only answered:

"You know best, Victor."

The head of the house received this judicious reply in full payment of all demands on his wife's attention, and immediately went forth to put his designs into execution—as fine a specimen of the Southern Union man as ever welcomed the advent of the loyal army with enthusiasm, and immediately presented a bill for damages sustained in the cause of Freedom!

CHAPTER VIII.—WITHOUT END.

Seated upon the lounge where he so often had rested, with her elbows resting upon the table on which his arms had so frequently reposed, sat the afflicted Libby. She had heard her paternal leave the house an hour before, and she had just heard the sound of his boots in the hall below as he returned; but she felt no desire to learn the reason thereof. Like her mother, she had seen the account of Mr. Peters' arrest in the morning paper, and her bewilderment at the statement respecting the device used to entrap that persecuted youth by a Daughter of the South, was only equalled by her grief at the unfortunate present predicament of her lover. So absorbed was she in her sorrows that she heard not the opening of the parlor door below her, nor the sound of footsteps on the stairs:—

"Miss Ordeth!"

Was it a dream? The beautiful mourner turned quickly in the direction of the sound, and beheld the bodily presentment of Mr. Bob Peters, who stood near the door with his shocking bad hat between his hands and an expression of stern reproach upon his countenance.

"Bob!—you here?" exclaimed the maiden, starting from her seat with a little shriek.

"Mr. Peters, if you please, Madame," said the late captive, with much dignity. "Owing to a great spread of Union sentiment in the bosom of your paternal relative, and his consequent representation in my behalf, I am here, to blast you with the sight of the innocence you have betrayed! I slipped up here to confront you, Madame," observed Mr. Peters, with some ease of manner, "while the old ones were packing the silver-plated spoons preparatory to a combined movement on the peaceful hamlet of Danville."

"What do you mean, you ridiculous thing?" asked Libby, scarcely believing her own ears.

"That we must part," returned Mr. Peters, calmly straightening an angle in the rim of his hat. "You named an hour for my nocturnal escape—quarter-past Twelve. I fled the Residence at that unseemly hour, though another maiden had previously invited me to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I went, and walked straight into the arms of the unsleeping Southern Confederacy, who was inebriated at the time, and conducted me to the penal pork-packing establishment. Enough! we part. I go to Danville with you, but only as an ordinary acquaintance of chilling reserve."

"Why Bob, what can you mean?" ejaculated Libby, to whom this remarkable speech was not particularly lucid; "it was not my fault that you were taken. If you had gone at quarter-past Twelve, as I told you, all would have been well. Oh, Bob, when Jocko told me next morning that he had waited for you a whole hour in the hall in vain, and when ma and I found that you had really gone at the wrong time, I sat right down and cried my eyes out."

"The wrong time!" exclaimed Mr. Peters, striding suddenly toward the mirror. "Impossible! Observe this repeater of mine, which is a reliable time-piece. On the night in question, this repeater was plainly before me, hanging on this gas bracket, before this looking-glass." Here Mr. Peters illustrated his assertion by suspending his watch from the bracket, under which it spun feebly for a moment. "At the very instant of my waking from a temporary slumber, I caught sight of this same repeater in the glass, and—why! what's this?"

In a moment every vestige of resentment had faded from the features of Mr. Bob Peters, and he stood staring at the reflection of his watch in the glass with the look of a man in the last stage of wonder.

Libby timidly drew near and placed a hand on his arm.

"What's the matter, dear?"

"What time is it now by the repeater?" asked Mr. Peters, excitedly, but without moving his eyes.

"Why, it's ten minutes past Ten," replied Libby, glancing at the face of the watch as it appeared in the mirror, and wondering what would come next.

"Look again!!" thundered Mr. Peters.

"Why," repeated Libby, half-frightened, "it's ten minutes past Ten."

Mr. Bob Peters deliberately took down his watch and pointed convulsively at its face with one finger. The time was ten minutes of Ten!

Mr. Peters' first act was to clasp the maiden to his bosom and kiss her unceremoniously. Then releasing her, he took two steps in a popular break-down and burst into a stentorian peal of laughter.

"I shall have to call Pa," said poor Libby.

"Not a bit of it!" shouted Bob, ceasing his Terpsichoreanism for a moment; "don't you see the joke? It's all in the looking-glass, my pet. When I thought it was a quarter past Twelve and fled the residence, it was really a quarter of Twelve—don't you see? The looking-glass reversed the hands on the watch!"

And so it was, mon ami. Hold your own time-piece with its face to a mirror, and you will "see the point."

But what can excuse that General who, after leading the whole country to expect that he would take Richmond in time for me to conclude this picture of Southern life, as I originally planned to do, now changes his base of operation in a strategic manner, and introduces a fizzle into romantic literature——

Here Smith-Brown, who happened to be awake, coughed intrusively, my boy, and says he:

"The fault is not the General's, my friend. The Secretary of War is alone to blame for it. He has killed literature."

How true was that speech, my boy. The Secretary is indeed responsible for this literary disaster, as well for everything else; and if he ever undertakes to stand on his own responsibility, he will find plenty of room to move about.

Yours, droopingly, Orpheus C. Kerr.

LETTER LV.

SETTING FORTH A NEW VILLAINY OF THE INSIDIOUS BLACK REPUBLICANS, AND DESCRIBING THE THRILLING CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OF DUCK LAKE.

Washington, D. C., July 12th, 1862.

Owing to the persistent stupidity of Congress and the hideously-treasonable machinations of the unscrupulous black republicans, my boy, the weather still continues very hot; and unless the thermometer falls very soon, an exhausted populace will demand an immediate change in the Cabinet. I am very warm, my boy—I am very warm; and when I reflect upon the agency of the abolitionists, who have brought this sort of thing about for the express purpose of injuring my Constitution, I am impelled to ask myself: Did our revolutionary forefathers indeed expire in vain? O my country! my country! it is very warm.

Such weather, my boy, is particularly trying to Sergeant O'Pake's friend,

THE IRISH PICKET.

I was talking some moments ago with a Regimental Surgeon, who has more patients on a monument than Shakspere ever dreamed about, and says he: "In consequence of the great number of troops now about this city, all the oxygen in the atmosphere is exhausted, and we are very warm. Had all these troops been sent to McClellan two weeks ago," says he, using his lancet to pick a dead fly out of his tumbler, "we might be able to keep cool now. There is a terrible responsibility on somebody's shoulders."

That's very true, my boy, and it's very warm.

There was a panic this morning in financial circles, owing to the frantic conduct of a gambling chap from the Senate, who has been saving up money to bet on the fall of Richmond, and was trying to put it out at interest. "I'll take seven per cent. for it the first year," says he, anxiously, "and leave it standing until national strategy comes to a head."

A broker took it for five years, my boy, with the privilege of extending the time after each fresh victory.

Speaking of victories, my boy, I was present at the recent series of triumphs by the Mackerel Brigade, on the left shore of Duck Lake, and witnessed a succession of feats calculated to culminate either in the fall of Richmond or the fall of the year.

From the head-quarters in the city of Paris to the brink of Duck Lake, the Mackerels were drawn up in gorgeous line of battle, their bayonets resembling somewhat an uncombed head of steel hair, and their noses looking like a wavy strip of summer sunset. By their last great stragetical manœuvre, they had lured the Southern Confederacy to court its own destruction by flanking them at both ends of the line, and they were only waiting for the master-mind to give them the signal.

Samyule Sa-mith advanced from this place in the staff as I rode up, and says he:

"Comrades, the General depends on you to precede him to glory. We had hoped," says Samyule, feelingly, "to have the company of two French counts in this day's slaughter; but those two noble Gauls had not time to wait, as they desired to visit the Great Exhibition in London."

These remarks were well received, my boy; and when the order was given for Company 3, Regiment 5, to detour to the left, it would have been promptly obeyed but for an unforeseen incident. Just as Captain Villiam Brown was about to break line for the purpose, an aged chap came dashing down from a First Family country-seat near by, and says he to the General of the Mackerel Brigade:

"I demand a guard for my premises immediately. My wife," says he, with dignity, "has just been making a custard-pie for the sick Confederacies in the hospital, and as she has just set it out to cool near where my little boy shot one of your vandals this morning, she is afraid it might be taken by your thieving mudsills when they came after the body. I, therefore, demand a guard for my premises, in the name of the Constitution of our forefathers."

Here Captain Bob Shorty stepped forward, and says he:

"What does the Constitution say about custard pie, Mr. Davis?"

The aged chap spat at him, and says he:

"I claim protection under that clause which refers to the pursuit of happiness. Custard pies," says he, reasoningly, "are included in the pursuit of happiness."

"That's very true," says the General, looking kindly over his fan at the venerable petitioner. "Let a guard be detailed to protect this good old man's premises. We are fighting for the Constitution, not against it."

A guard was detailed, my boy, with orders to make no resistance if they were fired upon occasionally from the windows of the house; and then Captain Villiam Brown pushed forward with what was left of Company 3, to engage the Confederacy on the edge of Duck Lake, supported by the Orange County Howitzers. Headed by the band, who played patriotic airs as soon as he could shake the crumbs out of his key-bugle, the cavalcade advanced to the edge of the lake and opened a heavy salute of round shot and musketry on the atmosphere, whilst Commodore Head kept up a hot fire at the horizon with his iron-plated fleet and swivel gun.

Only waiting to finish a game of base ball, in which they had been engaged, four regiments of Confederacies, at whom this deadly assault was directed, threw aside their bats and ball dresses, put on their uniforms, loaded their muskets and batteries, and sent an iron shower in all directions. Greatly demoralized by this unseemly occurrence, a file of Mackerels under Sergeant O'Pake immediately threw down their muskets and knapsacks, emptied their pockets upon the ground, piled their neckties in a heap, and were making a rapid retrograde movement, when Villiam suddenly threw himself in their path, and says he:

"Where are you going to, my fearless eaglets?"

"Hem!" says the sergeant, with much French in his manner, "we thought of visiting the Great Exhibition in London."

"Ah!" says Villiam, understandingly, "you have acquired French in one easy lesson, and—"

Here an orderly rode up with an order for the Mackerels to fall back from the edge of the Lake immediately, leaving their artillery, bayonets, havelocks, and baggage behind them; and Villiam was obliged to conduct the movement, which was a part of the strategical scheme of the General of the Mackerel Brigade. As we retreated back into Paris, my boy, we were joined by the Conic Section, and shortly after by the Anatomical Cavalry, both of which had succeeded in leaving all their accoutrements on the field.

As we all rushed together before head-quarters in perfect order, and while the Confederacy was eating some provisions, which we had refrained from bringing off the late scene of conflict, the General of the Mackerel Brigade came from under a tree, where he had been tanning himself, and says he:

"My children, we have whipped them at all points, and the day is ours."

"Ah!" says Villiam, abstractedly, "the day is hours."

"My children," says the General, in continuation, "we have pushed the enemy to the wall without fracturing the Constitution, and have only put the war back six months. We can say with pride, my children, that we belong to the Army of Duck Lake, and shall have no more Bull Runs. My children, I love you. Accept my blessing."

We were reflecting upon this soul-stirring speech, my boy, and silently admiring the strategy which had brought us all together again so soon, when the sound of drum and fife called our attention to a club of political chaps who had just arrived by steamer from the Sixth Ward, and were filing past us to a platform recently erected in the very centre of Paris.

"I do believe," says Captain Bob Shorty, whisperingly, "I do believe we're going to have a mass meeting."

Onward went the political chaps to the platform.

A delegation mounted the steps, advanced to the front rails, and commenced unfurling a vast linen banner. The sun was just setting, my boy, and as his parting beams fell upon the uplifted faces of the political chaps, a soft breeze unrolled the standard, and the Mackerels read upon its folds—

REGULAR CONSERVATIVE NOMINATION FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN 1865. THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE.

Shall it be said, after this, that republics are ungrateful? I think not, my boy—I think not. We have won a great and glorious victory, and the only question remaining to be answered is, Who is responsible for it, my boy—who is responsible for it?

Yours, in bewilderment, Orpheus C. Kerr.

LETTER LVI.

WHEREIN ARE PRESENTED SOME FEMININE REFERENCES, AN ANECDOTE BY THE EXECUTIVE, AND CERTAIN NOTES OF A VISIT TO THE FESTIVE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.

Washington, D. C., July 19th, 1862.

Permit me to return thanks through your mail, my boy, for a large feather fan recently consigned to my address by one of the admiring Women of America. It looks like a tail freshly plucked from a large-sized American eagle, and is decorated with a French-plate mirror in the centre and other French plates around the edges. The kind-hearted woman of America (who writes from Boston) says in her presentation note—"I admire to see a fan in the hands of the sterner sex; for it shows that the same hero-fist that grasps the sword has enough inherent gentleness to wave the cooling bauble. Such is life. The hand which falls like a hundred pounds of granite on the flinty eye of his ke-yuntery's foes has the softness of a blessing when it caresses the golden head of plastic childhood.

Yours, gushingly, Zephyrina Percy."

I find the "cooling bauble" very useful to brush the flies from my gothic steed Pegasus, my boy, and am a fanatic "to this extent, no more."

And here is what another young woman of America says to me in a note:

"My ma requests me to tell you that you ought to be ashamed of yourself, you hateful thing, for encouraging the vulgar people to be in favor of this nasty war, that is causing their superiors so much trouble, and has driven away the opera, and made enemies of those nice Southerners, with their beautiful big eyes and elegant swearing. Why don't you advocate a compromise, or a Habeas Corpus, or some other paper with names to it, and get Mr. Lincoln to stop the Constitution and order the war to be ended before there's any more assassinations and things? My pa was once a leather banker, and sold shoes for plantation servants, and made a great deal of money by it; but now he's a captain, or a surveyor, or some ridiculous thing, of the Home Guard, and may be massacred in cold blood the first time there's a battle in our neighborhood. My pa has to go to drill every night, and when he comes home in the morning he's so worn out with exhaustion that I've known him to lay right down in the hall and shed tears. My ma often says, that if Beauregard, or Palmerston, or any other foes should attack our house while pa is in that state, it would kill her dead. And I know it would make me so nervous that I should be a perfect fright for a week. My brother, Adolphus, has likewise joined the Home Guard, and has already had a bloody engagement with a Southerner named Tailor, who used to sell him clothes when the two sections were at peace. Adolphus says if it hadn't been for his double-quick, or some ridiculous military thing or other, he would have been made a prisoner. It makes me sick to see how much lowness there is about Adolphus since he joined the ridiculous army; he calls his dinner 'rations,' and addresses me as 'Corporal Lollypop,' (the absurd thing!) and calls ma's crinoline a 'counter-scarp.'

"My pa says that he shall have to sell the carriage and the beautiful dog-cart if this hateful war don't end by the first of next month; and when I asked him yesterday if we couldn't have the gothic villa next to the Jones's at Newport this summer, he actually swore! The Joneses, you know, are very pleasant, sociable, vulgar sort of people, with a little money; and it would kill me to see them putting on airs over us because we didn't happen to take a cottage with bow-windows like them. My pa says that old Jones has got a contract to make clothes for the soldiers, and has made a great deal of money by manufacturing coats and other ridiculous things out of blue paper instead of cloth. Augustus Jones says if he don't meet me at Newport this summer he will enlist as soon as he comes back; and it would be just like the absurd creature to do it. I don't see why pa can't get out an indictment or something against the blockade, and call on the postmaster or some other ridiculous thing to send his new stock of plantation shoes to Alabama under a guard, and bring back the money. I don't see the use of living in a republic if one can't do that much. My ma says that you newspaper people could stop the dreadful war if you would only advocate compromises and things, and not be so ridiculous. Why can't you leave out some of those absurd advertisements, and publish an article telling Mr. Lincoln that the war is ruining society? If it continues much longer, I shall have to wear my last year's bonnet a whole month, and I'd rather die. Do say something absurd, you ridiculous thing."

Have the war stopped right away, my boy,—have the war stopped right away.

Matters and things here are still in a strategic condition, and naught has disturbed our monotony, for a week, save a story they tell about the Honest Old Abe. It seems that two of the conservative Border State chaps, who are here for the express purpose of protesting against everything whatever, had a discussion about the Honest Abe, and one chap bet the other chap five dollars that he couldn't, by any possible means, speak to the President without hearing a small anecdote.

"Done!" says the other chap, gleefully, "I'll take the bet."

That very same night, at about twelve o'clock, he tore frantically up to the White House, and commenced thundering at the door like King Richard at the gates of Ascalon. The Honest Abe stuck his night-capped head out of the window, and says he:

"Is that you, Mr. Seward?"

"No, sir," says the Border State chap, glaring up through the darkness. "I'm a messenger from the army. Another great strategic movement has taken place, and our whole army have been taken prisoners by the Southern Confederacy. In fact," says the conservative chap, frantically, "the backbone of the rebellion is broken AGAIN."

"Hem!" says the Honest Abe, shaking a musquito from his nightcap, "this strategy reminds me of a little story. There was a man, out in Iowa, sat down to play a game of checkers with another man, inducing his friends around him to lend him the change necessary for stakes. He played and he played, and he lost the first game. Then he played much more cautiously, and lost the next game. His friends commenced to grumble; but, says he: 'Don't you worry yourselves, boys, and I'll show you a cute move pretty soon.' So he played, and he played, and he lost the third game. 'Don't be impatient, boys,' says he; 'you'll see that great move pretty soon, I tell you.' Then he played with great care, taking a long time to consider every move, and, by way of change, lost the fourth game. Close attention to what he was about, and much minute calculation, also enabled him to lose the fifth game. By this time his friends had lent him all their change, and began to think it was time for that great move of his to come off. 'Have you any more change?' says he. 'Why, no,' says they. 'Then,' says he, with great spirit, 'the time for that move I was telling you about has come at last.' As he commenced to rise from his chair, instead of continuing to play, his cleaned-out friends bethought themselves to ask him what that famous move was? 'Why,' says he, pleasantly, 'it's to move off for a little more change.'"

At the conclusion of this quaint tale, my boy, the Border State chap fled groaning to his quarters at Willard's, stuck a five-dollar Treasury Note under the pillow of the other Border State chap, and immediately took the evening train for the West.

Such is the story they tell, my boy; but I'm inclined to accept it merely as a work of fiction, with a truthful moral. Certain it is, that as strategy increases, small change grows scarcer, and it is the general opinion that no small change is needed in military matters.

In company with a patriotic democratic chap, who had come up from New York, for the express purpose of seeing that the negroes of the Southern Confederacy were not permitted to inform our forces of the movements of the enemy in contravention of the Constitution, I made a reconnoissance in force, on Monday, to the festive Shenandoah Valley. On our way thither, the democratic chap was greatly bitten by musquitos, for which he justly blamed the black republicans, who are trying to break up this Government, and on our arrival near Winchester, we stumbled upon a phlegmatic fellow-man in a swallow-tailed coat and green spectacles, who was seated on a stone by the roadside, reading the "Impending Crisis." The democratic chap passed on, swearing, to the nearest camp; but I paused before this interesting student.

"Well, old swallow-tails," says I, affably, "what are you doing in this section?"

He looked up at me with great severity of countenance, and says he: "I have come here, young man, to agitate the Negro Question; to open African schools; and, peradventure, to start a water cure establishment."

"What for?" says I.

"For the love of my species," says he, eagerly, "and for any little contract in the way of red breeches and spelling books that may be required for the reclaimed contrabands?"

Was this a case of purely disinterested philanthropy? Perhaps so, my boy, perhaps so; but the old swallow-tails reminded of a chap I once knew in the Sixth Ward. He was a high toned moral chap of much shirt-collar, with a voice that sounded like a mosquito in the bottom of a fish-horn, and a chin like a creased apple-dumpling. Years before he had married a Southern crinoline and talked about the glories of slavery in a polished and high-moral way; but as there happened just then to be a chance for him to run for alderman on the abolition ticket, he experienced a change of heart, and addressed a meeting on the evils of human bondage: "My friends," says he, patting his stomach in a heartfelt manner, "I once lived at the South and owned slaves; but never could I feel that it was right. My pastor would say to me: 'These men-slaves are black, you say; but have they not the same feelings with you, the same features—only handsomer?' I felt this to be so, my friends; I commenced to appreciate the enormity of holding human souls in bondage."