observed the beauteous object in
pink, and Captain Villiam Brown accidentally brushed against a
beatitude in white.

"Plebeian!"

"My fren," says Villiam, as though he and I were entirely alone
together on a desert island, "when old Binks gave up the soap-boiling
business last fall, and came to"--

"Did you wish to pass, sir?" said the beatitude in white; and we soon
found ourselves beside the banquet board, where all went merry as a
fire-bell.

Then did we gorge ourselves, my boy, like the very First Families under
similar circumstances; revelling in such salads as were known to the
ancients just before the breaking out of the Asiatic cholera, and
paying general attention to a bill of fare which was heartily despised
by the old aristocracy of the capital who had received no invitations.

It was past midnight when we retreated to a double-bedded room at
Willard's, and as Captain Villiam Brown took his goblet of final soda,
he gracefully tipped my glass, and says he:

"I propose a sentimink."

Villiam raised the Falernian nectar aloft, gazed solemnly at me, and
says he:

"Human Instink!"

Let us believe, my boy, that the instincts of those who come to the
higher social surface in this, our trying time of war, are, by their
own purity from anything actually malignant, sure indications that the
nation's heart is good to the very bottom. Let us believe that the
pride of Ascent, vain-glorious as it may seem, is nobler in raising the
public laugh than is the tyrannical pride of Descent, which too often
forces the public tear. Let us believe that, in the course of time,
when the soft white hand of Peace shall have thrown a wreath of flowers
across the muzzles of our guns, these unaccustomed tradesmen-courtiers
who now throng the halls of our upright First Citizen and Friend will
prove the sound ancestral stock of a race of brave gentlemen and women
fair, to defend and adorn our Republican Court.

Yours, blithely,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER CV.

BEING OUR CORRESPONDENT'S LAST EFFORT PRIOR TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF
A NEW MACKEREL CAMPAIGN; INTRODUCING A METRICAL PICTURE OF THE MOST
REMARKABLE SINGLE COMBAT ON RECORD; AND SHOWING HOW THE ROMANCE OF
WOMAN'S SENSITIVE SOUL CAN BE CRUSHED BY THE THING CALLED MAN.

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 12th, 1865.

This sagacious business of writing national military history once a
week, my boy, has at times presented itself to my mind as a public
obligat