g
downright. We discomfit the well-known Southern Confederacy, at every
turn, my boy,--we discomfit it at every turn; but, the trouble is, we
keep turning all the time, like a Thomas cat after his tail, constantly
believing that we are approaching the end, but never quite reaching it.

Fearing lest I should become metaphysical if I pursued this train of
thought any farther,--thereby encroaching upon the bottomless province
of the Awful and Unfathomable German mind, which rejoices gloomily in
the solemn investigation of all that verges upon muddled
abstraction;--fearing lest I should become thus erudite, profound, and
snuffily unintelligible, my boy, I repress my morbid inclination to
take a funereal canter into abstruse speculation on the elephants of
thought, and digress from theory to fact.

This city, which is destined to become in time another Waterloo in the
sense of offering everything drinkable in lieu of water, presents but
very little except bar-rooms in the way of entertainment just now.
Hence, my boy, we can properly appreciate the "Effigynia," as it is
classically called, which a thoughtful yellow-vested chap of much
breastpin, from Pequog, has just opened on Pennsylvania Avenue.
According to advertisement, "this chaste and plastic exhibition
consists of wax effigies of the five successive Generals of the
Mackerel Brigade, with the peculiar personalities of each one, and the
superiority of each over the other, unmistakably stamped on the forms
and features of each!" Being a moral man, my boy, and much addicted to
entertainments which differ from the prevailing drama of the day in
obviating the necessity for steadily blushing, I repaired to the
Effigynia the other evening and was much edified by the spectacle
presented. Five mirrors standing at different angles with a wax figure
of the first General of the Mackerel Brigade, were made each to reflect
said figure; and I could not help feeling, my boy, that the likenesses
were correct. I saw before me the counterfeit presentments of the five
soldiers who had successively arisen to the highest Mackerel Command,
and I found myself wondering how many more mirrors the exhibition would
need before the war came to a head--containing brains.

It was on Tuesday morning that I ascended majestically to the slanting
roof of my Gothic steed, the sagacious Pegasus, and moved perceptibly
across Long Bridge once more, toward the camp of the Mackerel Brigade.
It is worthy of