me, and unto
Xenophon revealed by night, to make Ten Thousand nobler in Retreat than
thrice ten thousand by a Caesar led; by All that unto All hath been
their All, I charge thee, oh, thou impulse of the gods! grand as the
storm and chainless as the wind, descend on me! as lightning from the
cloud descends to beacon what the storm makes dark. That I may write,
in words of thunder born, such deeds as strengthen while they shake the
world; that I may write, in lines to trumpets tuned, such acts as make
men brothers to the gods; that I may write, in notes to mock the lute,
such feats of cunning as lull Fate to sleep; that I may dip th'
immortalizing pen in bright Pactolus' ever golden stream, and write, in
language sweeter to the ear than Hymet's honey to soft Dion's lips,
glories of arms to first make Nature crouch--then leap to something
higher than herself!

(If any man objects to that sort of thing, my boy, may he be whipped to
death by the aged maidens of the Confederacy, and utterly perish _per
flagellationem extremam_.)

And now I feel the Homeric inspiration in all my veins as I dip the
impatient quill into the Black Republican ink, and hasten to record the
deathless honors recently reaped by the Mackerel Iron-plated Squadron
in a deathless attack upon Fort Piano.

You may remember, my boy, that the construction of a pier on Duck Lake
by some shameless Confederacies, and the erection on the end thereof of
Fort Piano, was first made known to our noble old sea-dog, Rear Admiral
Head, whilst he sat on the quarter deck of his original iron-plated
squadron fishing for bass, by the accidental knocking of the squadron
against the end of the pier. His back being turned at the time, he had
not noticed the building of the terrible fortification; and when the
horrible jar of the collision caused him to look that way, he found six
villanous horse-pistols so planted by the disrespectful Confederacies
as to exactly command his fish-basket and box of bait. You may also
remember my boy, how our glorious old Neptune subsequently caused the
stanch "Secretary Welles" to run the blockade of the fort, to
thoroughly test the invulnerability of the iron-clad principle; and how
the result of that test satisfactorily proved the iron-clad principle
to be entirely testaceous.

Since then, you have heard about the building of the new Mackerel
iron-plated squadron, the "Shockingbadhat," with Rear Admiral Head's
newly improved turret and re