"Very true, my bright little fellow," says the master; "now go back to your chawing." "You see, friend Hessian," says the master, turning to me, "how much superior Southerners are, even as children, to the depraved Yankees. In my teaching experience, I have known scholars only six years old to play poker like old members of the church, and a pupil of mine euchred me once in ten minutes." I thanked him for his courtesy, and was proceeding to the door, when I observed four boys in one corner, with their mouths so distorted that they seemed to have subsisted upon a diet of persimmons all their lives. "Venerable pundit," says I, in astonishment, "how came the faces of those offspring so deformed?" "O!" says the master, complacently, "that class has been studying Carlyle's works." I retired from Cotton Seminary, my boy, with a firm conviction of the utility of popular education, and a hope that the day might come when a Professorship of Old Sledge would be created in the New York University. Yours, for a higher civilization, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER XLII. REVEALING A NEW BLOCKADING IDEA, INTRODUCING A GEOMETRICAL STEED, AND NARRATING THE WONDERFUL EXPLOITS OF THE MACKEREL SHARPSHOOTER AT YORKTOWN. WASHINGTON, D.C., May 2d, 1862. Speaking of the patriarch of the Navy Department, my boy, they say that the respected Ancient has under consideration a new and admirable plan for making the blockade efficient. The idea is, to furnish all the naval captains with spectacles made of looking-glass, so that when they are asleep, on the quarterdeck, their glasses will reflect the figure of any rebel craft that may be trying to slip by. These spectacles could all be ready in twenty years; and when the Secretary told a Congressman of the plan, the latter thought carefully over the suggestion, "as dripping with coolness it rose from the Welles," and says he: "My dear madam, the idea lacks but one thing--the looking-glass spectacles ought to be supplied with a comb and brush, so that the captain could fix himself up after capturing the pirate. Ah, madam," says the Congressman, hastily picking up the Jack of Clubs, which he had accidentally pulled out with his pocket-handkerchief, "you will rank next to Mary, the mother of Washington, in the affections of future generations." The _mother_ of Washington, my boy!--the MOTHER of Washington!--why, the Secretary is already celebrated as the grandmother of Washington--city.