"Hops the canary 'neath the wires,
Speaks the canary not a word;
When to my heart the chill has struck,
How can I sing?—can ary bird?"
Let us mingle our tears, my boy, in a gruel of compassion, as we conjointly reflect upon this affecting revelation of Woman's Heart.
On Thursday last, my architectural steed, the gothic Pegasus, conveyed me once more, by easy stages, to the outskirts of Paris, where I found the aged and respectable Mackerel Brigade cleaning their spectacles and writing their epitaphs preparatory to that celebrated advance upon the well-known Southern Confederacy which is frequently mentioned in ancient history. The Grim Old Fighting Cox, my boy, has rashly determined, that the unfavorable weather shall not detain our national troops another single year, and there is at last a prospect that our grandchildren may read a full and authentic report of the capture of Richmond in the reliable morning journals of their time. And here let me say to the grandchild Orpheus: "Be sure, my boy, that you do not permit your pardonable exultation at the triumph of your country's arms, to make you too severe upon the conquered foes of the Republic." I put in this little piece of advice to posterity, my boy, because I desire to have posterity magnanimous.
I was conversing affably with a few official Mackerels about several mutual friends of ours, who had been born, were married, and had expired of decrepitude during the celebrated national sieges of Vicksburg and Charleston, when a civilian chap named Mr. P. Greene came into camp from New York, with the intention of proceeding immediately to the ruins of Richmond. He was a chap of much spreading dignity, my boy, with a carpet-bag, an umbrella, and a walking-cane.
"Having read," says he, "in all the excellent morning journals, that Richmond is being hastily evacuated by the starving Confederacy, I have determined to precede the military in that direction. Possibly," says he, impressively, "I may be able to find a suitable place in the deserted city for the residence of my family during the summer."
Captain Villiam Brown listened attentively, and says he:
"Is your intelligence official, or founded on fact?"