y plates!" swore the aged son of Neptune in his iron-clad
manner, as he adjusted his spectacles and extracted a slow-match from
one corner of his snuff-box,--"Loosen my plates! but the navy must kill
a few Confederate insects,--bark my turret, if it mustn't."

It was really beautiful, my boy, to see an iron-clad tar of such great
age light the slow-match with his own meerschaum, and aim the improved
artillery directly at the rear-elevation of a Confederacy tying his
shoe in one of the side windows of Paris.

Ker-bang! went the triumph of naval ingenuity, causing the flag-ship to
hop only a few inches into the air; and a Confederacy with amputated
coat-tails was instantly seen to spin wildly around and rub himself
like one in a bath.

Not to sicken you, my boy, with too much of such heart-rending
slaughter, let me say that a dense cloud of sulphurous smoke soon
entirely veiled the doomed City of Paris, into which the strategical
Mackerels continued for hours to pour such torrents of lead as no
number of windows could stand. Finally, as night approached, a person
of black extraction, with wool on the brain, emerged from the cloud
quite close to Villiam, and says he:

"De place hab surrender, sah."

"Ah!" says Villiam, pulling out his ruffles, "is the conflick too much
for the scorpions?"

The faithful black arranged a silver cake-basket more firmly under his
coat, and says he:

"Dey's all gone over Jordan."

Wild were the cheers that rent the air at this intelligence, and right
quickly were our national troops marching into the bar-room of captured
Paris, to the inspiring strains of "Drops of Brandy," from the
night-key bugle of the Mackerel band. Our distracted banner, too, was
just being raised triumphantly upon the roof, when there suddenly
emerged, from the shadow of the rear-guard, Miss P. Hen, leaning
trustfully upon the arm of the Conservative Kentucky Chap!

"Now," says she, vivaciously, "is the very moment for the President to
save our bleeding and bankrupt people, by paying four hundred millions
of dollars to the sunny South for her losses in this war, and offering
her such terms as may induce her to make that peace which is absolutely
necessary to close the most accurate History of the War now sold to
subscribers only."

Pause, my boy, ere you execrate the venerable Miss P. Hen; for there is
more than one fidgety old lady tendering advice to the Government at
this crisis; and the sisterhood is not