While the question was in debate, my boy, the beloved General of the Mackerel Brigade arrived with his trunk and umbrella from Paris, and having caused it to be telegraphed to all the reliable morning journals that the Confederacy were now in a fair way to be captured alive, he at once took measures to cut off the retreat of the latter. Captain Villiam Brown, with Company 3, Regiment 5, was at once ordered to construct a pontoon bridge across the river some miles below, and watch it vigilantly day and night; Captain Bob Shorty and Colonel Wobert Wobinson, with the Anatomical Cavalry, were dispatched to take possession of a railroad leading to Manassas; whilst Captain Samyule Sa-mith with the balance of the Conic Section, was commanded to make a detour of three hundred miles, and endeavor to reach the invaded house before midwinter set in. All these movements were in accordance with profound strategy, my boy, and cut off the Confederacy from retreat by every route in the world, except the insignificant one he came by. Satisfied that the war was going to end in about sixty days, after which we should have time to defeat combined Europe, the Mackerel guard hastened back to the domicil, which he reached just in time to find the Confederacy topping his go-cart with some kindling-wood from the cellar. I regret to say, my boy--I blush for my species as I make the incredible revelation--that upon receiving the information of his surrounding and probable strategic capture by the vigilant Mackerel Brigade, the irreverent Confederacy burst into a hideous horse-laugh, and at once proceeded to appropriate the poor Mackerel chap's own shoes and stockings. With the deepest horror I record, that he also tweaked the Mackerel's nose. "I did not intend this as a permanent invasion," says the impious Confederacy, as he remounted his go-cart and turned his geometrical Arabian toward the water again; "but I have just married a daughter of South Carolina--one of two twins--and reckoned that I needed some things to set up housekeeping. Farewell, foul Hessian," says the Confederacy, as he splashed through the water to the opposite bank--"fare thee well, and tell your fiendish ruler, that it is somewhat impossible to conquer the sunny South." The Mackerel chap gazed thoughtfully after the go-cart as it disappeared on the other side of the balmy Awlkwyet stream, and says he: "Rail on, my erring brother; but if you'd only stayed here one more week, you might not have escaped thus for seven whole days. Had the army been insufficient to secure you," says the Mackerel to himself, "had the army been insufficient to secure you, why, there's the police." Raids, my boy, are so intrinsically irregular in their character, that no provision can be made for them in a regular army; hence they are sometimes necessitated to take provisions for themselves as they go on.