"Yes—"
"Am I to believe that—"
"All is quiet on the Potomac!"
It was too much for the venerable Brutus; he clutched at the air, spun once on his left heel, sang a stave of John Brown's body, and stood transfixed with ecstacy.
"Thank Heving," says he, "for sparing me to see this day!"
After which he became hopelessly insane, my boy, and raved so awfully about all our great generals turning into Mud-larks that his afflicted family had to send him to the asylum.
This veracious and touching biography will show you how dangerous to public health is reliable war news, and convince you that the Secretary's order to the press is only a proper insanitary measure.
I am all the more resigned to it, my boy, because it affects me so little that I am even able to give you a strictly reliable account of a great movement that lately took place.
I went down to Accomac early in the week, my boy, having heard that Captain Villiam Brown and the Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade were about to march upon Fort Muggins, where Jeff Davis, Beauregard, Mason, Slidell, Yancey, and the whole rebel Congress were believed to be intrenched. Mounted on my gothic steed Pegasus, who only blew down once in the whole journey, I repaired to Villiam's department, and was taking notes of the advance, upon a sheet of paper spread on the ground, when the commander of Accomac approached me, and says he:
"What are you doing, my bantam?"