ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XXXVII. DESCRIBING THE REMARKABLE STRATEGICAL MOVEMENT OF THE CONIC SECTION, UNDER CAPTAIN BOB SHORTY. WASHINGTON, D.C., March 28th, 1862. The most interesting natural curiosity here, next to Secretary Welles' beard, is the office of the Secretary of the Interior. Covered with spider-webs, and clothed in the dust of ages, my boy, sit the Secretary and his clerks, like so many respectable mummies in a neglected pyramid. The Department of the Interior, my boy, is in a humorous condition; the sales of public lands for the past year amount to about ten shillings, the only buyer being a conservative Dutchman from New Jersey, who hasn't heard about the war yet. These things weigh upon my spirit, and I was glad to order up my Gothic stallion, Pegasus, the other day, and rattle down to Manassas once more. Upon reaching that celebrated field of Mars, my boy, I found the General of the Mackerel Brigade in his tent, surrounded by telegraphic instruments and railroad maps, while the Conic Section was drawn up in line outside. "You appear to be much absorbed, my venerable Spartan," says I to the General, as I handled the diaphanous vessel he was using as an act-drop in the theatre of war. The General frowned like an obdurate parent refusing to let his only daughter marry a coal-heaver, and says he: "I'm absorbed in strategy. Eighteen months ago, I was informed by a contraband that sixty thousand unnatural rebels were intrenched somewhere near here, and having returned the contraband to his master, to be immediately shot, I resolved to overwhelm the rebels by strategy. Thunder!" says the General, perspiring like a pitcher of ice-water in June, "if there's anything equal to diplomacy it's strategy. And now," says the General, sternly, "it's my duty to order you to write nothing about this to the papers. You write about my movements; the papers publish it, and are sent here; my adjutant takes the papers to the rebels; and so, you see, my plans are all known. I have no choice but to suppress you." "But," says I, "you might more surely keep the news from the rebels by arresting the adjutant." "Thunder!" says the general, "I never thought of that before." Great men, my boy, are never so great but that they can profit occasionally by a suggestion from the humblest of the species. I once knew a very great man who went home one night in a shower, and was horrified at discovering that he could not get his umbrella through the front door. He was a very great man, understood Sanscrit, made speeches that nobody could comprehend, and had relatives in Beacon-street, Boston. There he stood in the rain, my boy, pushing his umbrella this way and that way, turning it endways and sideways, holding it at acute angles and obtuse angles; but still it wouldn't go through the door, nor anything like it. By-and-by there came along a chap of humble attainments, who sung out: "What's the matter, old three-and-sixpence?"