in a mud-scow could have put them to
flight--even a blind nigger should we have sent against them.

'Great and glorious is HOLLINS, splendid is his fame, great is his
victory, beyond all those of the Meads and Prussians, Cherrynea and
Chepultapec, Thermopilus and Vagrom.'

Then it was telegrammed all over the South, and the rest of mankind,
that HOLLINS had peppered the fleet, and pulverized the last particle
thereof into small-sized annihilation.

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV.

But on the evening of the first day there came yet other tidings of a
reactive character,

Saying that a confounded abolitionist man-of-war was still there giving
block-aid to Uncle Sam.

And HOLLINS, who was in town, being asked what this might mean,

Said, 'Fudge!

'Go to, it is naught. Now I come to think of it, there _was_ one
infernal little sneaking 90-gun Yankee frigate,

'Which, hearing of my coming, ran away six hours before the battle--ere
that I had peppered 'em.'

But lo! even as he spake came yet another message, declaring there were
twain.

Then HOLLINS declared, 'It is a d----d lie, and he who says it is
another--an abolitionist is he in his heart. Did I not pepper 'em?'

But lo, even as he sware there came yet another,

Saying, 'Let not my lord be angry, but with these eyes have I seen it;
by many others was it perceived.

'Whether the ships which my lord peppered have risen again I know not,
but if the whole Yankee fleet isn't there again, all sound and right
side up with care, I hope I may be drotted into everlasting turpentine.'

Then the newspapers arose and reviled HOLLINS,

Calling him a humbug--even a humbug called they him.

As for the multitude, they laughed him to scorn; such a blackguarding
never received man before,

Calling him an old blower and bloat, a gas-bag and _fanfaron_, a Gascon
and a _carajo_, _alma miserabile_, and a pudding-head, a _sacre menteur_
and a _verfluchte prahlerische Hauptesel_, a brassy old blunder-head and
a spupsy, _un sot sans pareil_ and a darned old hoffmagander; a
pepper-_pot-pourri_, a thafe of the wurreld and an owld baste, the
divil's blissing an him!

In French, English, Dutch, Spanish and Irish, Yankee and Creole, yea,
even in Nigger and in Natchez Indian, reviled they him.

And the rumor thereof went abroad into all lands, that HOLLINS had been
compelled to hand in his horns.

How are the mighty fallen, how is he that was exalte