You will observe, my boy, that this same great mathematical idea is advanced in the Message as it is printed; but our Honest Abe has chosen to vary the terms somewhat. If you have a gold dollar, my boy, salt it down for five hundred years, and some future generation of offspring will call you blessed for leaving them $3,250 in postage-stamps. On my last journey toward Paris, finding the Mackerel Brigade still halting before that ancient city, I rode straight to the tent of Captain Villiam Brown, whom I found making himself a fall overcoat from some old newspapers, while the Chaplain sat near by, making himself a pair of shoes from a remnant of calico. "Well, paladin," says I to Villiam, "what is it that so long detains our noble army on the path of conquest?" Villiam sighed as he used a little more paste to fasten the sleeves of the garment he was constructing, and says he: "It's the overcoats." "Why," says I, epigrammatically, "don't they go far enough forward in front?" "Ah!" says Villiam, thoughtfully, "they come far enough forward in front, but then they leave the rear exposed. On Monday," says Villiam, reflectively, "Company Three's overcoats arrived, and I requested the warriors to attire themselves after the designs of frequent fashion-plates. But scarce had their manly forms commenced to assume the garments, when the garments tore frantically from their warlike shapes." "Hum!" says I, questioningly, "the overcoats were Rebels in disguise." "No," says Villiam, gloomily, "but it took two Mackerels to hold an overcoat together while another warrior put it on, and when it was buttoned in front, the rear presented the aspeck of two separate departments. I am now making myself a stronger coat of Democratic newspapers," says Villiam, explainingly, "in order that my Constitution may be protected from harm." I glanced at him askant, my boy, and says I, innocently, "I see a still better reason for your clothing yourself for battle in newspapers." "Ah!" says Villiam, complacently, "you think that I adopt the intellectual garment to show that my line of battle is ten cents a line." "No, my hero," says I, pleasantly, "I think you clothe yourself for battle in printed matter, to make sure that 'he who runs may read.'" I would not say positively that Villiam "saw" this agreeable remark, my boy. I am not prepared to affirm that he took the hit; but as the canteen left his hand, my ears recognized a hasty whiz, and the effect upon the side of the tent, near my head, was perforating. Turning from the spot, I next had my attention attracted by a tall whiskered chap, in a paralyzed whirlpool of gray rags, who was closely examining a stack of Mackerel muskets near at hand. Hearing me ask his object, he remarked casually that I was a "mudsill," and says he: