While I am compelled to admit, my boy, that I do not exactly understand by what authority the General of the Mackerel Brigade is empowered to issue this Proclamation; and that some of its clauses--particularly the last--strike me as being somewhat muddled, I yet regard it as at least a faint evidence that the tremendous farce in which we have so long been playing such bloody parts is at last coming to an end. And since the farce seems drawing to a close, perhaps your farcical Orpheus C. Kerr could select no fitter time than this to withdraw with grace from the field. As this thought occurs to me, my boy, I look up, and behold a couple of our brigadiers a few paces off, with only two tumblers between them. Their faces are expressionless. I have seen apple-dumplings with more expression, especially when dressed with sauce. It is impossible, my boy, that any wise thing should enter into the heads of our brass-buttoned generals under any possible circumstances; and with heavy heart, I acknowledge the conviction that I must still rush the quill. Yours, enduringly, ORPHEUS C. KERR. LETTER LXXII. REPORTING THE LATEST SMALL STORY FROM "HONEST ABE," AND DESCRIBING THE MOST MERCENARY BAYONET CHARGE ON RECORD. WASHINGTON, D. C., October 4th, 1862. Our Honest Abe, my boy, may lack these brilliant qualities which in the great legislator may constitute either the live-oak sceptre of true patriotism or the dexter finger of refined roguery, as the genius of the age pivots on honesty or diplomacy; but his nature has all the sterling characteristics of the heartiest manhood about it, and there is a smiling sun in his composition which never sets. That he is in his anecdotage, my boy, is a fact "Which nobody can deny; Or, if they do, they lie!" yet even his anecdotes have that simple sunlight in them which is, perhaps, a greater boon to the high place of a nation in the dark hour, than the most weird and perpetual haze of crafty wisdom could be. There was a dignified chap here from New York on Monday; a chap who has invented many political conventions in his time, and came here for the special purpose of learning everything whatsoever concerning the present comparative inactivity of the able-bodied Mackerel Brigade. The Mackerel Brigade, my boy, has done little more than skirmish on the festive borders of the well-known Southern Confederacy since the great metaphysical victory in which it gained such applause and lost a few muskets, and the dignified convention chap called upon the Honest Abe to learn the meaning of the present situation. Rumor states that it was the Honest Abe's hour of fragmentary leisure when this inquiring chap perforated the White House; and that he was sitting with his boots on the window-sill, carving a pine toothpick from a vagrant chip.