hanksgiving,
when I beheld Captain Villiam Brown approaching, on his geometrical
steed, the angular Euclid. Following him, but on foot, was Captain Bob
Shorty in command of the famous Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade.

"Ha!" says Villiam, leaping down to meet me in dreadful entanglement
with his sword, and hastily plunging into his bosom a small black
bottle of regulation cough-drops, "have you flown hither like an narrer
from a bow, to view the sublime spectacle of the troops at their feed?
Ah!" says Villiam, quickly clasping his hands to save the bottle from
slipping out of his breast-pocket, "the beautiful pageant of a nation
feasting these martial beings on turkey, is something for besotted
Europe to tremble at. Next to serving up ice-cream to the sailors in a
gale of wind at sea, this"--

Here a venerable Mackerel tottered from the ranks, and says he: "Is
them the birds in them ere cases and barrels, Capting?"

Villiam attempted to rattle his sword threateningly at this
interruption; but observing that the hilt of his weapon had got around
to his spine, he rattled the keys in his pockets instead, and says he:

"How now, Sarah!"

(He meant to say "sirrah," my boy,--he meant to say "sirrah;" having
recently learned, from the perusal of a moral tale in one of our
excellent weekly journals of exciting romance, that said aristocratic
term is of frequent occurrence in all the conversations of the great.)

"Why," says the aged Mackerel, coughing into his hand, "if them's the
turkeys the people have sent us for Thanksgiving, we're ready for 'em."

"You're right, Sarah," says Villiam, magnanimously, "and we'll open
this first case at once. The trade-mark of this case," says Villiam,
learnedly, "is '50 Turkeys with Care.'"

They were prying the lid off, my boy, with bayonets, and the eyes of
the surrounding Mackerels had commenced to glisten fierily through
their spectacles, when I saw Villiam and Captain Bob Shorty exchange
looks of deep meaning, and shake their heads like a couple of
melancholy mandarins.

"Robert S.," says Villiam, with a look of deep perplexity, "this is
indeed a strange oversight."

Captain Bob Shorty shook his head sadly.

"And yet," says Villiam, sternly, "we must tell these beings about it."

"There's no avoiding it, by all that's Federal!" murmured Captain Bob
Shorty.

Captain Villiam Brown sighed deeply, and says he:

"Soldiers, the people of the United States of America meant