warning now, all Irishmen, of what may be your fate,
If you come home on Christmas-night an hour or so too late;
For sleeping on the garret stairs, and rolling down, may be
To you, as unto Mike, a dream of good Saint Tammany!"

The deep, terror-stricken silence following this ghastly legend was
suddenly broken, my boy, by a frenzied shriek from my frescoed dog,
Bologna, who had followed me down from Washington, and whose stirring
tail had been accidentally trodden upon by the absorbed Mackerel
Chaplain. The picturesque animal, with a faint whine not unlike the
squeaking of a distant saw, walked toward Captain Bob Shorty and gazed
inquisitively for an instant into his face; then took earnest nasal
cognizance of the boots of Captain Samyule Sa-mith; then sat for an
instant on his haunches, with his tongue on special exhibition; and,
finally, went out of the tent.

"Ah!" exclaimed Captain Villiam Brown, who sat nearest the bottle, and
had, for the past hour, been unaccountably shedding tears,--"how much
is that dorg like human life, feller-siz'ns! Like him, we make a yell
at our firz 'pearance. Like him, we make our firz advances to some
brother-puppy. Like him, we smell the boots of our su-su-superiors.
Like him, we put out our tongues to see warz marrer with us; and, at
last, like him, we--(hic)--we go out."

At the culmination of this sublime burst, Villiam again melted into
tears, smiled around at us like a summer-sunset through a shower, and
gracefully sank below the horizon of the table, like an over-ripe
planet.

"By all that's Federal!" said Captain Bob Shorty, "that was dying
young, for Villiam; but who can tell whose turn it may be next? To
guard against possibilities, my blue-and-gold Napoleons, I will at once
proceed to read you a Christmas-story, written expressly for the
Mackerel Brigade by my gifted friend, Chickens, who should be in every
American library, and would like to be there himself. The genius of my
friend, Chickens," says Captain Bob Shorty, enthusiastically, "cannot
be bought for gold; but, in a spirit of patriotic self-sacrifice, he
would take 'greenbacks,' if the sordid persons having control of the
press should conclude to give him that encouragement which, I am
indignant to say, they have hitherto, with singular unanimity of
sentiment, entirely denied him. Indeed, my friend Chickens has, at
times, been placed in charge of the police by certain editors with whom
he has warmly