"In that case, my native land, good night," responded the interesting captive, Byronically; "my incarceration will terminate with an epitaph--'_Hic Jacet_ ROBERT PETERS. A victim of miss-placed confidence. He died young'--Jailor, you are affected. Accept a quarter!" The Cerberus clutched the proffered coin and eyed it with feverish intensity. It was evidently the first quarter he had seen since the commencement of his services in that hole. The man's better nature was touched. "Hist!" he said, drawing Mr. PETERS aside and speaking in a whisper: "I can no longer conceal the truth. I am a Southern Union man." It is a beautiful peculiarity of our common nature, _mon ami_, that crime never sinks so deeply nor perversion spreads so obstinately in the human soul, but there is still a deeper current of normal rectitude responsive to the force of currency. That this was known to the ancients, is evinced by the antique custom of placing coins on the eyes of the dead, thereby signifying to all concerned that, whatever faults might have perished with the deceased, _de mortuis nil nisi bonum_. "Can't I have a room to myself?" asked BOB, after a short pause. "Follow me," was the response; and he followed the keeper through a crowd of curious prisoners, up a stair-way against a wall, to a room on the next floor. The keeper opened the door with a key from one of his pockets, and led the way into an apartment whose only furniture was a bed, a ricketty chair and a bit of looking-glass on a shelf. "I sleep here sometimes myself," said the keeper; "but you shall stay here for a small rent. Make yourself comfortable." "Stop a minute," said BOB, as the man turned to leave. "Do you know how I came to be arrested?" "I don't know exactly," was the answer; "but I believe you was informed upon by some woman. Good night. Here's the candle." The prisoner cast himself upon the bed, as the key grated again in the lock, and was fast asleep before the poor fellows down stairs had extinguished their miserable lights. In the morning the friendly keeper brought him his breakfast, consisting of a cup of something very much like "sacred soil" after a heavy rain, two geological biscuits and a copy of the Richmond _Whig_. "What do you call this stuff?" asked Mr. PETERS, ruefully eyeing the contents of the cup. "Coffee," replied the keeper, blandly, "real Mocha." Mr. PETERS was silent. To call such fluid Mocha was sheer mockery. The biscuits dispatched and the coffee defied, the captive betook himself to deep and admiring contemplation of the newspaper; and was deriving much valuable instruction from an article written to prove how skilfully and ingeniously the Southern Confederacy had struck a telling blow at its ruthless invaders by strategetically surrendering Norfolk, when an early visitor was admitted. Said visitor was a young man contained in a picturesquely-tattered uniform, with a fatigue cap on his head and a rusty sword rattling at his heels.