as 'Sir John' Smith they said, when it was '_Sur-geon_' Smith!"

As he said this, the middle-aged gentleman became aware that one of his
toes was sticking very much through his boot, and retired to
confidentially ask the assistant oysterer if any one had yet found
that valuable diamond scarf-pin which he (the middle-aged gentleman)
had recently lost.

I looked at the Conservative Kentucky chap, my boy, and his chin had
sunk down upon his breast. He felt that his mistake was also the
mistake of Kentucky, and his heart was too full for further
conversation.

'Twas on Thursday morn,--Thanksgiving Day,--that I blithely scaled the
heights of my faithful Gothic steed, the architectural Pegasus, and
softly urged that ruined temple of a horse to trot me a lively
reminiscence of his youth. Forward we went with a unique, chopping
motion, with now and then a stumble to keep the blood in circulation,
interpersed with occasional plunges at stumps and shyings at fluttering
withered leaves. When you have mounted a beloved horse, on a fine,
bracing autumnal morning, my boy, did you ever feel like a kind of new
and superior being; as though you and your steed were one consummate
individual, inspired by one bounding, uncontrollable impulse, and
impatiently regarding the line of the horizon as a tyrannical limit to
a ride that should else tear gallantly and recklessly forth into
illimitable space? Did you ever feel thus, my boy?...

Because, if you did, your feelings were not at all like mine.

* * * * *

Onward we go, like a wrecked centaur before the wind, and soon these
eager eyes behold once more the camp of the aged and thrice-valiant
Mackerel Brigade. Far and near, the spectacles of the decrepit veterans
are flashing in the sun; whilst before them is the much-besieged City
of Paris, and behind them (in consequence of recent rains) the storied
waters of Duck Lake. The veterans are clustered around Paris, my boy,
like so many exceedingly thirsty chaps around the tall and well-spiked
fence inclosing a cherished pump, and if ever they get at it, they will
at least drink it dry. Scarcely had I reined-in, near the edge of Duck
Lake, where certain members of Rear Admiral Head's iron-plated mackerel
squadron were discharging cases and barrels by the score,--scarcely had
I dismounted from the Gothic Pegasus and hitched him to the body of a
slumbering Mackerel chap, who had already overdone his T