Samyule blew his nose in a business-like manner, and says he;
"Several of them have just gone South."
I am unable to state what response the general intended to make, my boy; for at this instant a body of horsemen swept between the speakers, one of the riders jerking the veteran's horse violently from under him, and galloping the steed away with him. Up sprang the general, in a violent perspiration, and says he:
"Where's my horse gone to?"
"I guess," says a Mackerel chap, stepping up—"I guess that it was took by the equestrian Confederacy, which has just made another raid."
"Thunder!" says the general, "they'll take my coat and vest next." And he retired to a spot nearer Washington.
I would gladly continue my narrative of the advance movement, my boy, showing how our forces continued their march in excellent order, safely reaching a spot within ten miles of the place they gained
on the following day; but such revelations would simply tend to confuse your weak mind with those great doubts concerning military affairs which tend to render civilization impertinently critical.
It is the simple duty of civilians, my boy, to implicitly trust our brass-buttoned generals; of whom there are enough to furnish the whole world with war—and never finish it at that.
Yours, weekly,
Orpheus C. Kerr.