The meeting might have lasted another week, my boy, thereby rendering the Union cause utterly invincible, but for the imprudence of an insane chap who proposed that some of the young men present should enlist. This malapropos and singularly inconsistent suggestion broke up the assemblage at once, in great disorder--volunteering being just the last thing that any one thought of doing. Greatly edified and encouraged by what I had heard, my boy, I made all haste for Paris, where I found the Mackerel Brigade and Commodore Head's fleet in great excitement over the case of an Irish gentleman who believed this to be a white man's war, and had started for Paris, just fourteen minutes after landing in this country, for the express purpose of protesting against any labor being performed by negroes, while there were white men to do it. Colonel Wobert Wobinson, of the Anatomical Cavalry, quieted him by saying that, although a number of negroes were then engaged in digging trenches, a new line of holes in a far more unhealthy place would be commenced in the morning, and that none but Irishmen should be permitted to dig them. On the night previous to my arrival, my boy, while all the Mackerels were watching the stars with a view to prevent any surprise from that quarter, the Southern Confederacy on the other side of Duck Lake trained four large fowling-pieces upon their peaceful camp from behind a wood-pile, and commenced a ferocious and ear-splitting bombardment. It was some hours before our men could be got into position to return the fire, as Captain Bob Shorty had forgotten where they had put the Orange County Howitzers when last using them. The fleet, too, was somewhat delayed in getting into action, as Commodore Head experienced some difficulty in unlocking the box into which he always puts his spectacles and slow-match before retiring at night. Finally, however, the howitzers were discovered behind some boards, and the spectacles and slow-match were forthcoming, and our troops were pouring a hot fire across Duck Lake before the Confederacy had got two-thirds of the way back to Richmond. Next morning, my boy, the Conic Section crossed the Lake, and cleared away everything on the opposite shore except the before-mentioned wood-pile. The latter contains the same kind of wood that was burned in the time of Washington, my boy, and twenty men were appointed to guard it from the profanation of our troops. We must protect such property at all hazards, my boy, or the Constitution becomes a nullity. Having crossed the treacherous element to view the immediate scene of these proceedings, and learned from Captain Villiam Brown that our pickets were within ten miles of the Confederacy's capital, I was about to make some short remark, when a messenger came riding forward in a great perspiration, and says he; "Our pickets have been driven in." "Ha!" says Villiam, "is the Confederacy again advancing upon the United States of America?"