In New Orleans--that most patriotic of republican cities--epaulettes gleamed upon every shoulder, whilst I, with the anguish of a Tantalus, was compelled to look idly and enviously on.

Despatches came in daily from the seat of war, filled with newly-glorious names; and steamers from the same quarter brought fresh batches of heroes--some legless, some armless, and others with a bullet-hole through the cheek, and perhaps the loss of a dozen teeth or so; but all thickly covered with laurels.
November came, but no commission.

Impatience and ennui had fairly mastered me.

The time hung heavily upon my hands.
"How can I best pass the hour?
I shall go to the French opera, and hear Calve." Such were my reflections as I sat one evening in my solitary chamber.
In obedience to this impulse, I repaired to the theatre; but the bellicose strains of the opera, instead of soothing, only heightened my warlike enthusiasm, and I walked homeward, abusing, as I went, the president and the secretary-at-war, and the whole government-- legislative, judicial, and executive.

"Republics _are_ ungrateful," soliloquised I, in a spiteful mood.