at when the new Mackerel
iron-plated squadron was ready for carnage and fishing, there was a
hostile projection in the way.

"Chip my turret!" says Rear Admiral Head, in his iron-plated manner, "I
think I shall have to blow a few more Rebels into eternity--smash my
casemate! if I don't."

I stood upon the shore of Duck Lake, with a bit of smoked glass to my
eye as usual, when our new monster of the deep came abreast of Fort
Piano, and Rear Admiral Head commenced to reconnoitre through his
pocket-microscope. The venerable commander gazed steadfastly through it
for a moment, and then, says he:

"Crack my plates! if I don't perceive an insect on the wall of the
hostile work."

There was indeed a solitary Confederacy seated upon the front wall of
Fort Piano, dining sumptuously upon some fresh hoe-cake, and says he:

"You can't pass here without a New Jersey ferry-ticket."

(New Jersey, my boy, is now a Southern Confederacy, or a Peace of one.)

I could hear the glorious old naval hero say, in a suppressed voice, to
the intelligent Mackerel crew on top of the turret:

"Depress your weapon four points to windward, grease the ball, and fire
at his stomach."

In another instant, the whole landscape shook with a tremendous
explosion, jarring the Admiral so greatly that his spectacles fell off,
and causing his blue cotton umbrella to tremble like a leaf. The ball
ascended to the zenith in a parabolical curve, and was lost amongst the
other planets. I do not think, my boy, that the Confederacy would have
been offended at this, had not the sudden noise caused him to jump in
such a manner that he dropped his hoe-cake into the dirt. Upon this
occurrence, however, he sprang to his legs on the wall, drew up a long
pole from behind him, disrespectfully cracked our glorious old Rear
Admiral over the head with it, and then commenced shoving at the turret
of the "Shockingbadhat."

Perceiving the great danger of the squadron, and unmindful of his own
wound, the venerable sea-dog hastily grasped at the pole, and says he:
"Ah, now, what do you want to do that for, Mr. Davis? What's the use of
pushing my turret overboard?"

He said this so mildly that the Confederacy burst into a prodigious
horse-laugh, and drew in his pole again.

"As no possible good could be attained by taking Fort Piano, the
indomitable old Rear Admiral at once returned with the squadron to his
original anchorage; having gained all that was required, and pro