"My poor patient has a cold in his head, and his life depends, perhaps, on the gratification of his wishes. You have heard him ask for his grandmother," says the surgeon, softly, "and as his grandmother lives too far away to be sent for, we must practice a little harmless deception. We must send for Secretary Welles of the Navy Department, and introduce him as the grandmother. My patient will never know the difference."
I took the hint, my boy, and went after the Secretary; but the latter was so busy examining a model of Noah's Ark that he could not be seen. Happily, however, the patient recovered while the surgeon was getting his saw filed, and was well enough last night to reconnoitre in force.
The Mackerel Brigade being still in quarters before Yorktown, I am at leisure to stroll about the Southern Confederacy, my boy; and on Thursday I paid a visit to Cotton Seminary, just beyond Alexandria, where the Southern intellect is taught to fructify and expand. This celebrated institution of learning is all on one floor, with a large chimney and heavy mortgage upon it, and a number of windows supplied with ground glass—or, rather, supplied with a certain openness as regards the ground.
Upon entering this majestic edifice, the master, Prex Peyton, descended at once from the barrel on which he was seated, and gave me a true Virginian welcome:
"Though you may be a Lincoln horde," says he, in a manorial manner, "the republic of intellect recognizes you only as a man. The Southern mind knows how to recognize a soul apart from its outer circumstances; for what say the logicians? Deus est anima brutorem! Take a seat on yonder barrel, friend Hessian, and you shall hear the wisdom of the youthful minds. First class in computation stand up."
As I took a seat, my boy, the first class in computation came to the front; and it is my private impression, my boy—my private impression—that each child's father was the owner of a rag plantation at some period of his life.
"Boys," says the master, "how is the table of Confederate money divided?"
"Into pounds, shillings, and pence."
"Right. Now, Master Mason, repeat the table."
Master Mason, who was a germ of a first family, took his fingers out of his mouth, and says he: