Feelin' a little peckish, I went into a eatin' house to-day and encountered a young man with long black hair and slender frame.  He didn't wear much clothes, and them as he did wear looked onhealthy.  He frowned on me, and sed, kinder scornful, "So, Sir--you come here to taunt us in our hour of trouble, do you?" "No," said I, "I cum here for hash!" "Pish-haw!" he sed sneerinly, "I mean you air in this city for the purposes of gloating over a fallen people.  Others may basely succumb, but as for me, I will never yield--NEVER, NEVER!" "Hav' suthin' to eat!" I pleasantly suggested. "Tripe and onions!" he sed furcely; then he added, "I eat with you, but I hate you.  You're a low-lived Yankee!" To which I pleasantly replied, "How'l you have your tripe?" "Fried, mudsill! with plenty of ham-fat!" He et very ravenus.  Poor feller!  He had lived on odds and ends for several days, eatin' crackers that had bin turned over by revelers in the bread tray at the bar. He got full at last, and his hart softened a little to'ards me.  "After all," he sed, "you have sum people at the North who air not wholly loathsum beasts?" "Well, yes," I sed, "we hav' now and then a man among us who isn't a cold-bluded scoundril.  Young man," I mildly but gravely sed, "this crooil war is over, and you're lickt!  It's rather necessary for sumbody to lick in a good square, lively fite, and in this 'ere case it happens to be the United States of America.  You fit splendid, but we was too many for you.  Then make the best of it, & let us all give in and put the Republic on a firmer basis nor ever. "I don't gloat over your misfortuns, my young fren'.  Fur from it.  I'm a old man now, & my hart is softer nor it once was.  You see my spectacles is misten'd with suthin' very like tears.  I'm thinkin' of the sea of good rich Blud that has been spilt on both sides in this dredful war!  I'm thinkin' of our widders and orfuns North, and of your'n in the South.  I kin cry for both.  B'leeve me, my young fren', I kin place my old hands tenderly on the fair yung hed of the Virginny maid whose lover was laid low in the battle dust by a fed'ral bullet, and say, as fervently and piously as a vener'ble sinner like me kin say anythin', God be good to you, my poor dear, my poor dear." I riz up to go, & takin' my young Southern fren' kindly by the hand, I sed, "Yung man, adoo!  You Southern fellers is probly my brothers, tho' you've occasionally had a cussed queer way of showin' it!  It's over now.  Let us all line in and make a country on this continent that shall giv' all Europe the cramp in the stummuck ev'ry time they look at us!  Adoo, adoo!" And as I am through, I likewise say adoo to you, jentle reader, merely remarkin' that the Star-Spangled Banner is wavin' round loose agin, and that there don't seem to be anything the matter with the Goddess of Liberty beyond a slite cold. Artemus Ward.     ____________________ ARTEMUS WARD TO THE PRINCE OF WALES.