"Why, my dear Saint Paul," says I, "that's my gothic steed, Pegasus." "Ahem!" says he. "You must be mistaken, my poor worm; for I can see half way down the aisle." "The perspective," says I, "is simply the perspective between the hind legs of the noble creature, and his rear elevation deceives you." "Well," says the religious chap, grievously, "if you ever want to do anything for the missionary cause, my poor lost lamb, just skin that horse and let me have his frame for a numble chapel, wherein to convert contrabands." [Illustration: REQUIESCAT IN "PACE." ARCHITECTURAL VIEW OF THE GOTHIC STEED, PEGASUS--REAR ELEVATION.] On my way down the Potomac to Paris, my boy, with Pegasus and the intelligent dog Bologna, I met Commodore Head, of the new iron-plated Mackerel fleet, who was taking his swivel Columbiad to a blacksmith, to have the touch-hole repaired. The Commodore met with a great disappointment at Washington, my boy. He ordered the great military painter, Patrick de la Roach, to paint him a portrait of Secretary Welles, Cabinet size. When the picture came home, my boy, it was no larger than a twenty-five-cent piece, frame and all; and the portrait was hardly perceptible to the naked eye. "Wedge my turret!" says the Commodore, in his iron-plated manner, "I wouldn't give a Galena for such a picture as that. What did you make it so small for, you daubing cuss?" "Didn't you want it Cabinet size?" says the artist. "Batter my plates! of course I did," says the Commodore. "Well," says the artist, earnestly, "if you ever attended a Cabinet meeting, you'd know that that is exactly the Cabinet size of the Secretary of the Navy." The Commodore related this to me, my boy, in the interval of naval criticisms on the gothic Pegasus, whom he pronounced as incapable of being hit at right angles by a shell as the Monitor. "Explode my hundred-pounder!" says the Commodore, admiringly, "I don't see any flat surface about that oat-crushing machine. Perforate my armor, if I do!" A great battle was going on upon the borders of Duck Lake when we reached Paris, my boy, and on ambling to the battle-field with my steed and my dog, I found the Mackerel Brigade blazing away at the foe in a thunder-storm and vivid-lightning manner. Captain Villiam Brown, mounted on the geometrical steed Euclid, to whom he had administered a pinch of Macaboy to make him frisky--was just receiving the answer of an orderly, whom he had sent to demand the surrender of a rebel mud-work in front. "Did you order the rebel to surrender his incendiary establishment to the United States of America?" says Villiam, majestically returning his canteen to his bosom. "I did, sire," says the Orderly, gloomily. "What said the unnatural scorpion?" says Villiam. "Well," says the Orderly, "his reply was almost sarcastic." "Ha!" says Villiam, "what was't?"