"Old man!" says I, "you were lifted out of the quiet of a happy home and
placed here, not so much by the act of our illustrious President as by
the dispensation of a mysterious Providence. 'Way down in Skewdunk they
held prayer-meetings when they heard that news, and a good many of them
haven't stopped praying yet. But only last week, let me tell you, Deacon
DRYASDUST wrote to General GRANT'S father, saying: 'JESSE, old boy,
there's no use praying for that venerable porgy any longer; he's worser
nor ever, and bound to drag LYSSES down to the bottom with him.' The
kind old man wrote back to the Deacon 'That's so, GILL, as sure as
pickled souse ain't pickled salmon.' And now, Mr. Secretary, I come to
the point. What old GILL DRYASDUST and JESSE GRANT think of you is what
the people think; and when PUNCHINELLO shoots at you an arrow now and
then, dipped in fun, and winged with satire, he does it in no spirit of
surly bitterness or spleen, but with a heart full of hope and charity,
and as much as says to the people of the United States, in your hearing:
'My good friends, keep on praying for brother FISH, and don't give him
up because some think him a "scaly" fellow.'"

Thus finishing this mingled admonition and explanation, I dropped a
single tear upon the figure worked in the carpet, and gloomily quitted
the apartment.

The next morning I found a letter upon the table, at my lodgings,
bearing the imprint of the Department of State, and couched in these
terms:

Dear Sir: Instructions have been sent from this Department to
Admiral POOR, commanding U. S. Squadron in Cuban waters to
extend to American merchants engaged in establishing a trade in
ant-eaters with the inhabitants of the South Sea Chickadiddle