The affable young chap closed one eye waggishly at a handy young woman who was cleaning the upper windows of a house near by, and says he: "These here, are five thousand copies of a blank form, just printed down at our place for the State Department. And I should think," says the affable young chap, taking a dash at a small boy who had just "cut behind" his cart--"I should think that pile ought to last a month, at least, though the last one didn't." I made bold to examine a copy of the blank form in question, my boy, and found it to read as follows: "CITY OF WASHINGTON, U.S.A., } DEPARTMENT OF STATE. } "_Dear Sir_: "_Permit me to beg you will inform the Government of ----, so admirably represented by you, that the Government of the United States entirely disapproves the action of the Commander of the ----, in the matter of ---- ----, and will make whatever reparation may be deemed adequate therefor by the Government of ----._ "_With the profoundest respect, I am your Excellency's most obedient humble servant_, ---- ----. "HIS EXCELLENCY ---- ----. MINISTER FROM ----." As I read this document, I thought to myself: Verily my distracted country's Secretary of State wishes to save as much writing as possible; and who knows but that he is like one of our own frontier riflemen, who kneels only that he may take the more deliberate aim at the heart of the wolf? And now, as I push on again for my destination, let me say to you, my boy, that few who read my wonderfully lifelike picture of Mackerel strategy and carnage, have any idea of the awful perils constantly assailing a reliable war-correspondent of the present day. Thus: during a great battle which I attended in Accomac, a piece of shell tore off my head,--that is to say, the head of my cane. At the second battle of Paris, while I was in the act of taking notes of the prevailing strategy, a cannon-ball took my legs off,--that is to say, the legs of my camp-stool. In the summer of '62, as I was sitting in the doorway of my tent, on the shores of Duck Lake, a case-shot, of immense size, entered my chest,--that is to say, the chest in which I carry my linen. Cherish me, my boy, make much of me; for there is no telling how soon some gory discharge of artillery may send me to join the angel-choir. But here we are in the tent of Captain Villiam Brown; and the manner in which the Mackerel officers are clustered about the round table in the centre, reminds me of flies around a lump of sugar--supposing a lump of sugar to be shaped exactly like a portly black bottle. Sergeant O'Pake rises with a manuscript in his band, and says he: "Comrades,--let me read to you a weird legend, of which I am the sole author and proprietor, and to which I would draw your most political attention." And the sergeant forthwith delivered this remarkable poetical report of "THE IRISHMAN'S CHRISTMAS. "Hic!"--TERENCE.