The march went on, my boy, until we got to the next house, where the inmates refused to appear, but shouted that they had seen _three_ companies go past. At this Captain Bob Shorty was heard to scratch his head in the darkness, and says he: "This here strategy is a good thing at decent odds: but when it's three to one, it's more respectable to have all quiet on the Potomac. Halt, fellow wictims, and let us wait here until the daily sun is issued by the divine editor." The orb of light was calmly stealing up the east, my boy, when Captain Bob Shorty sprang from his blanket and observed the house, before which the Conic Section was encamped, with protruding eyes. "By all that's blue!" says Captain Bob Shorty, "if that ain't the werry identical house where we saw the vinegar maiden last night!" And so it was, my boy! The Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade had been going round and round on a private race-course all night, stopping four times at the same judge's stand, and going after their own tails, like so many humorous cats. Strategy, my boy, is a profound science, and don't cost more than two millions a day, while the money lasts. Yours, in deep cogitation, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XXXVIII. INTRODUCING THE VERITABLE "HYMN OF THE CONTRABANDS," WITH EMANCIPATION MUSIC, AND DESCRIBING THE TERRIFIC COMBAT A LA MAIN BETWEEN CAPTAIN VILLIAM BROWN, OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND CAPTAIN MUNCHAUSEN, OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. WASHINGTON, D.C., April 4th, 1862. Knowing you to be a connoisseur in horse-flesh, my boy, it is but proper I should tell you that I have leased my steed, the gothic Pegasus, for a few days to an army carpenter, that gentleman having expressed a wish to use my architectural animal as a model for some new barracks. Pegasus, my boy, when viewed lengthwise, presents a perspective not unlike a Hoboken cottage, and eminent builders tell me that his back is the very beau ideal of a combination roof. I sent a side-view photograph of the fiery stallion to a venerable grandmother not long since, and she wrote back that she was glad to see I had my quarters elevated on piles to avoid dampness, but should think the hut would smoke with such a crooked chimney! The old lady is rather hard of hearing, my boy, and makes trifling mistakes without her spectacles. In the absence of my war-horse I hired a respectable hack to take me to Manassas, the driver saying that he would not charge me more than ten dollars an hour, as he had seen better days himself. What his seeing better days had to do with me I didn't exactly see, my boy; but I hired the chariot, and we went down the river at a pace sometimes achieved by that carriage in a funeral which contains the parents of the deceased.