The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers, Series 2. R. H. Newell

slumber, I caught sight of this same repeater in the glass, and—why! what's this?"

      In a moment every vestige of resentment had faded from the features of Mr. Bob Peters, and he stood staring at the reflection of his watch in the glass with the look of a man in the last stage of wonder.

      Libby timidly drew near and placed a hand on his arm.

      "What's the matter, dear?"

      "What time is it now by the repeater?" asked Mr. Peters, excitedly, but without moving his eyes.

      "Why, it's ten minutes past Ten," replied Libby, glancing at the face of the watch as it appeared in the mirror, and wondering what would come next.

      "Look again!!" thundered Mr. Peters.

      "Why," repeated Libby, half-frightened, "it's ten minutes past Ten."

      Mr. Bob Peters deliberately took down his watch and pointed convulsively at its face with one finger. The time was ten minutes of Ten!

      Mr. Peters' first act was to clasp the maiden to his bosom and kiss her unceremoniously. Then releasing her, he took two steps in a popular break-down and burst into a stentorian peal of laughter.

      "I shall have to call Pa," said poor Libby.

      "Not a bit of it!" shouted Bob, ceasing his Terpsichoreanism for a moment; "don't you see the joke? It's all in the looking-glass, my pet. When I thought it was a quarter past Twelve and fled the residence, it was really a quarter of Twelve—don't you see? The looking-glass reversed the hands on the watch!"

      And so it was, mon ami. Hold your own time-piece with its face to a mirror, and you will "see the point."

      But what can excuse that General who, after leading the whole country to expect that he would take Richmond in time for me to conclude this picture of Southern life, as I originally planned to do, now changes his base of operation in a strategic manner, and introduces a fizzle into romantic literature——

      Here Smith-Brown, who happened to be awake, coughed intrusively, my boy, and says he:

      "The fault is not the General's, my friend. The Secretary of War is alone to blame for it. He has killed literature."

      How true was that speech, my boy. The Secretary is indeed responsible for this literary disaster, as well for everything else; and if he ever undertakes to stand on his own responsibility, he will find plenty of room to move about.

      Yours, droopingly,

       Orpheus C. Kerr.

LETTER LV.

       Table of Contents

      SETTING FORTH A NEW VILLAINY OF THE INSIDIOUS BLACK REPUBLICANS, AND DESCRIBING THE THRILLING CONSTITUTIONAL BATTLE OF DUCK LAKE.

      Washington, D. C., July 12th, 1862.

      Owing to the persistent stupidity of Congress and the hideously-treasonable machinations of the unscrupulous black republicans, my boy, the weather still continues very hot; and unless the thermometer falls very soon, an exhausted populace will demand an immediate change in the Cabinet. I am very warm, my boy—I am very warm; and when I reflect upon the agency of the abolitionists, who have brought this sort of thing about for the express purpose of injuring my Constitution, I am impelled to ask myself: Did our revolutionary forefathers indeed expire in vain? O my country! my country! it is very warm.

      Such weather, my boy, is particularly trying to Sergeant O'Pake's friend,

      THE IRISH PICKET.

      I'm shtanding in the mud, Biddy,

       With not a spalpeen near,

       And silence, spaichless as the grave,

       Is all the sound I hear.

       Me gun is at a showlder arms,

       I'm wetted to the bone,

       And whin I'm afther shpakin' out,

       I find meself alone.

      This Southern climate's quare, Biddy,

       A quare and bastely thing,

       Wid Winter absint all the year,

       And Summer in the Spring.

       Ye mind the hot place down below?

       And may ye niver fear

       I'd dhraw comparisons—but then

       It's awful warrum here.

      The only moon I see, Biddy,

       Is one shmall star, asthore,

       And that's fornint the very cloud

       It was behind before;

       The watchfires glame along the hill

       That's swellin' to the south,

       And whin the sentry passes them

       I see his oogly mouth.

      It's dead for shlape I am, Biddy,

       And dramein shwate I'd be,

       If them ould rebels over there

       Would only lave me free;

       But when I lane against a shtump

       And shtrive to get repose,

       A musket ball he's comin' shtraight

       To hit me spacious nose.

      It's ye I'd like to see, Biddy,

       A shparkin' here wid me

       And then, avourneen, hear ye say,

       "Acushla—Pat—machree!"

       "Och, Biddy darlint," then says I,

       Says you, "get out of that;"

       Says I, "me arrum mates your waist,"

       Says you, "be daycent, Pat."

      And how's the pigs and ducks, Biddy?

       It's them I think of, shure,

       That looked so innocent and shwate

       Upon the parlor flure;

       I'm shure ye're aisy with the pig

       That's fat as he can be,

       And fade him wid the best, because

       I'm towld he looks like me.

      Whin I come home again, Biddy,

       A sargent tried and thrue,

       It's joost a daycent house I'll build

       And rint it chape to you.

       We'll have a parlor, bedroom, hall,

       A duck-pond nately done,

       With kitchen, pig-pen, praty-patch,

       And garret—all in one

      But, murther! there's a baste, Biddy,

       That's crapin' round a tree,

       And well I know the crature's there

       To have a shot at me.

       Now, Misther Rebel, say yere prayers,

       And howld yer dirthy paw,

       Here goes!—be jabers, Biddy dear,

       I've broke his oogly jaw!

      I was talking some moments ago with a Regimental Surgeon, who has more patients on a monument than Shakspere ever dreamed about, and says he: "In consequence of the great number of troops now about this city, all the oxygen in the atmosphere is exhausted, and we are very warm. Had all these troops been sent to McClellan two weeks ago," says he, using his lancet to pick a dead fly out of his tumbler, "we might be able to keep cool now. There is a terrible responsibility on somebody's shoulders."

      That's very true, my boy, and it's very warm.