“I understood you to say the Yankees.”

“O, no! Yankees? No; I am one myself. I said guerillas.”

“If you did, I misunderstood you.”

“Of course I didn’t say Yankees. That is quite impossible.”

Somers was disposed to be polite, even at the sacrifice of the point of veracity; therefore he did not contradict his companion, though he felt entirely certain in regard to the language used.

“Of course you could not have meant Yankees, whatever you said,” added Somers.

“Certainly not. Do you know why I didn’t catch those—those guerillas?” continued the major.

“I do not,” replied Somers; but he had a strong suspicion that it was because he did not want to catch them; because it would have been imprudent for him to catch them; because it would have been in the highest degree dangerous for him to catch them.

“I’ll tell you why I didn’t catch them,” added the major, rubbing his hands as a man does when he has a point to make. “It was because their horses went faster than mine.”

“Good!” exclaimed Somers, who had the judgment to perceive that this answer was intended as a joke, and who was politic enough to render the homage due to such a tremendous effort—a laugh, as earnest as the circumstances would permit.

“Or possibly it was because my horse went slower than theirs,” added the major, with the evident design of perpetrating a joke even more stupendous than the last.

We beg to suggest to our readers, young and old, that a person lays himself open more by his jokes, his puns, and his witticisms, than by any other means of communication between one soul and another with which we are acquainted. Hear a man talk about business, politics, morality, or religion, and you have a very inadequate idea of his moral and mental resources. Hear him jest, hear him make a pun, hear him indulge in a witticism, and you have his brains mapped out before you. We have heard a man get off a witticism, and felt an infinite contempt for him; we have heard a man get off a witticism, and felt a profound respect for him. It is not the thing said; it is not the manner in which it is said; it is not the look with which it is said. It is all three combined. He who would conceal himself from those 

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