ly lump in the harbor, and "won't go
over the bar;" while the "shoe-factory" we established to supply
niggerdom with soles, is snuffed out for want of energy and capacity to
manage it; while some of our non-slaveholding, but most active secession
merchants, are moving seriously in the great project of establishing a
"SOUTHERN CANDLE-FACTORY"--a thing much needed in the "up-country;"
while our graver statesmen (who don't get the State out of the Union
fast enough for the ignorant rabble, who have nothing but their folly at
stake) are pondering over the policy of spending five hundred thousand
dollars for the building of another war-ship--one that "will go over the
bar;" and while curiously-written letters from Generals Commander and
Quattlebum, offering to bring their allied forces into the field--to
blow this confederation down at a breath whenever called upon, are being
published, to the great joy of all secessiondom; while saltpetre,
broadswords, and the muskets made for us by Yankees to fight Yankees,
and which were found to have wood instead of flint in their hammers,
(and which trick of the Yankees we said was just like the Yankees,) are
in great demand--and a few of our mob-politicians, who are all "Kern'ls"
of regiments that never muster, prove conclusively our necessity for
keeping a fighting-man in Congress; while, we assert, many of our first
and best known families have sunk the assemblies of the St. Cecilia in
the more important question of what order of government will best
suit--in the event of our getting happily out of the Union!--our refined
and very exacting state of society;--whether an Empire or a Monarchy,
and whether we ought to set up a Quattlebum or Commander
dynasty?--whether the Bungle family or the Jungle family (both fighting
families) will have a place nearest the throne; what sort of orders will
be bestowed, who will get them, and what colored liveries will best
become us (all of which grave questions threaten us with a very
extensive war of families)?--while all these great matters find us in a
sea of trouble, there enters the curiosity-shop of the old Antiquary a
suspicious-looking individual in green spectacles.

"Mr. Hardscrabble!" says the man, bowing and taking a seat, leisurely,
upon the decrepit sofa. Mr. McArthur returns his salutation,
contemplates him doubtingly for a minute, then resumes his fussing and
brushing.

The small, lean figure; the somewhat seedy broadcloth in which i