.

"There was a Sergeant of the Mack'rel ranks
Made one attempt to carry out the law;
But ah!--to Providence a thousand thanks!--
He met a doom to fill the soul with awe.

"Scarce had his impious hands the task begun;--
Scarce had he ope'd the vast and mammoth thing,--
When, from the trunk's interior Phlegethon,
Came forth a horrid phantom, with a spring!

"It was a dreadful monster, without flesh,
Made up of ever-less'ning, perfect hoops;
More terrible to vision than secesh,
With all his ragged, whiskey-drinking troops.

"The wretched Sergeant started back with fear,
And would have 'scaped the penalty incurred;
But, ah! the spectre caught him by an ear,
And held him trembling like a prisoned bird.

"Wrought up to frenzy by mishap so dire,
He struck the phantom in his thoughtless rage;
But 'twas like fanning to put out a fire,
And straight his hand was tangled in a cage!

"And then his other tyrant hand he tried
To ease the springs that pressed him ev'rywhere;
His futile blow the Skeleton defied,--
His other hand was taken in a snare!

"Then round his form the dread avenger coiled,
Like snakes' backbones in unelastic curl;
By prison-bars his wished retreat is foiled,
And in a cage behold the trembling churl.

"Still mad with terror at his grievous plight,
He lifts a foot, as though to kick at last;
When, lo! his leg goes through an op'ning slight,
And there two wiry circles hold it fast.

"He plunges, staggers, tries to tear the bands
Which make that woman's Skeleton complete;
Then reeleth blindly unto where she stands,
And falls in helpless bondage at her feet!"

When the poor tool of tyranny was released from this terrific skeleton,
he looked as bewildered as one who had just returned from the outskirts
of civilization; but still his fiendish taste for trunk-inspection was
not conquered. He returned to the edge of the wardrobe abyss, drew
forth an immense white article, and says he:

"Do my spectacles relate a fiction, or is this indeed a Sibley tent for
the use of the Confederacy?"

At this moment the excellent young woman hastily snatched the article
away from him, and says she:

"You nasty thing, that's my"--here she blushed.

At times, my boy, woman's blush is the imperial banner of virgin
Modesty thrown out to c