struck a table on which was a
large inkstand, and had squirted the whole contents over the despatches
he was writing for Paris.

Now this old gentleman prided himself upon the neatness of his
despatches: a blot on his paper darkened his soul.

Colonel Dujardin expressed his profound regret. The commander, however,
continued to remonstrate. "I have a great deal of writing to do,"
said he, "as you must be aware; and, when I am writing, I expect to be
quiet."

Colonel Dujardin assented respectfully to the justice of this. He then
explained at full length why he could not bring a gun in the battery to
silence "Long Tom," and quietly asked to be permitted to run a gun out
of the trenches, and take a shot at the offender.

"It is a point-blank distance, and I have a new gun, with which a man
ought to be able to hit his own ball at three hundred yards."

The commander hesitated.

"I cannot have the men exposed."

"I engage not to lose a man--except him who fires the gun. HE must take
his chance."

"Well, colonel, it must be done by volunteers. The men must not be
ORDERED out on such a service as that."

Colonel Dujardin bowed, and retired.

"Volunteers to go out of the trenches!" cried Sergeant La Croix, in
a stentorian voice, standing erect as a poker, and swelling with
importance.

There were fifty offers in less than as many seconds.

"Only twelve allowed to go," said the sergeant; "and I am one," added
he, adroitly inserting himself.

A gun was taken down, placed on a carriage, and posted near Death's
Alley, but out of the line of fire.

The colonel himself superintended the loading of this gun; and to the
surprise of the men had the shot weighed first, and then weighed out the
powder himself.

He then waited quietly a long time till the bastion pitched one of its
periodical shots into Death's Alley, but no sooner had the shot struck,
and sent the sand flying past the two lanes of curious noses, than
Colonel Dujardin jumped upon the gun and waved his cocked hat. At this
preconcerted signal, his battery opened fire on the bastion, and the
battery to his right opened on the wall that fronted them; and the
colonel gave the word to run the gun out of the trenches. They ran it
out into the cloud of smoke their own guns were belching forth, unseen
by the enemy; but they had no sooner twisted it into the line of Long
Tom, than the smoke was gone, and there they were, a fair mark.

"Back into the trenches,