Among those present at this sublime ovation was an aged chap selling apples, who immediately burst into tears when the voice of the venerable man fell upon his ears. On being asked to explain his emotions, he cast his dim eyes upward toward an American flag which was being used by a merchant near by to advertise some patent pills, and says he, brokenly: "When I hear that woice, and see that flag, all my manhood crumbles into scalding tears." He was an apple-seller of fine feelings, and had once served as a deserter in the Army of the Potomac. Pathetic little incidents like these, my boy, humble though they may be, are pregnant with a deep and touching meaning, of which I have not the remotest conception. There is a new Mackerel Hotel recently erected on the borders of Duck Lake, near Strategy Hall, for the benefit of Brigadiers who have not been accustomed to doing without a bar; and it was in one of the rooms thereof that the Conservative Kentucky Chap recently fell a victim to the most remarkable optical illusion of this distracted century. He was sitting with his back to a window, my boy, his head drooped upon his breast beneath the weight of the Emancipation Proclamation, and, with arms folded and legs screwed awry on his chair, he was contemplating the opposite wall from under his Conservative hat. "Hum," says he, with subdued ecstasy, "How sweet it is to look upon the map of my native land, of which Kentucky is the guiding star! As I look upon that simple map," says the conservative Chap, thoughtfully, "and reflect upon the recent improvements in Kentucky, it becomes a question in my mind whether Kentucky is the United States, or the United States is Kentucky." Following the direction of his eyes as he said this, I beheld upon the wall opposite where he was sitting: [Illustration: A CONSERVATIVE KENTUCKY MAP OF ALL AMERICA.] "Look here, my absorbed Talleyrand," says I, in astonishment, "that's not a map! It's only your own shadow on the wall." He moved as I spoke, and then, for the first time, discovered his illusion. "Hum!" says he, "it is a map of the Union in the sense that the Union is but a shadow of its former self." The Conservative Kentucky Chap is actually so insufferably egotistical, my boy, and so imbued with the idea that Kentucky is the whole country, that it is almost impossible for him to sit on a chair without throwing his body into almost the exact shape of the American Continent. Having induced a small Mackerel drummer to bring me my chaste architectual steed, the Gothic Pegasus, I mounted the roof of that walking country church, and moved off in an organ-waltz to inspect the national troops.