The more I looked at the machine the more it puzzled me. I knew what a fox Seward was, an I remembered how he stuck the little nigger in Linkin's Teliskope. So all at once the old sayin that "there's allers a wheel within a wheel," popped into my hed. I didn't say it out loud, but I sed, ses I, "Boss, will you let me see whether there ain't sumthin rong about that?" Ses he, "Sartinly, Majer--go ahed." So I jest out with my jack knife an went at it. I tuck it all apart. Wen I went at the wheel I saw the Boss begin to wince, but I went rite on, an purty soon I saw, sure enough, the outside wheel was only a sham, for the rale wheel which run the government machine was marked "HIGHER LAW--ABOLITION." "Now," ses I, "Boss Seward, I'm done with you. Here's a wheel within a wheel, jest as I expected. It shows what an infarnal hypocrite you are, and ef you're a mind to fite John Bull or the South, or all the world, as long as you run on that wheel, I won't help you." So I jest tuck my hickery an went out of the room. You never see such a dumbfounded, scart set of men in your life, an Seward looked as ef he would craul through an auger hole. I cum rite on after that to Downingville, but I didn't get here in time to see about the arrangements. The Insine made his orashin and Jerusha sung the oad prepared for the occashin. My letter is so long that I can't tell you enything about it, but wen I rite agin I may, ef sumthin more important don't happen. Yours, till deth, MAJER JACK DOWNING. LETTER XIII. _The Major Returns to Washington--Things Get Mixed Up--Lincoln and the Panther--Splittin Rails and the Union--The Major and the President Visit Gen. McClellan's Army--Going up James River--Alarm of the Rebels--Exciting Scene on Board the Boat--Nobody Hurt--The President Reviews the Troops at Harrison's Landing--The Return Trip--The President and Party Bathe in the Potomac--Almost a Catastrophe--The Major's Life-Preserver--The Moral of it--The President Proposes a Conundrum._ WASHINGTON, July 21, 1862. _To the Editers of The Cawcashin:_