oston of the oldest age going to the verge of apoplexy in their
efforts at double-shuffle; but how can description do justice to the
Honorable Gentleman from the Sixth Ward, who performed the celebrated
Conflagration Hornpipe!

First, the Honorable Gentleman threw his whole weight upon his left
leg, elevated one ear as though intently listening, and tapped
distinctly upon the floor with his right heel the number of the
district. Then came a confused scuffling, first upon one foot and then
upon the other, to represent the hurry and excitement of getting the
machine out of the house and whirling her to the scene of the
conflagration. The next figure, performed alternately upon the toe,
heel, and side of the shoe, was an imitation of the noble machine in
motion; the whole winding up with the Honorable Gentleman's seizing his
partner around the waist and plunging into a polka, symbolizing the
gallant fireman's rescue of a consuming female from a sixth-story
window.

This beautiful dance, my boy, was considered an unanswerable argument
in favor of a Volunteer Fire Department; but its finishing effect was
somewhat marred by a piercing note from the famous night-key bugle of
the Mackerel Brass Band: who, in an enfeebled state of mind, was found
wandering about the palace a trifle intoxicated, and received prompt
direction to the apartments of Detective Baker.

After witnessing, also, the noted walk-around known as the Revenue
Stamp, we joined the march for supper, and I sweetly expressed to
Captain Villiam Brown my fear of being crowded from the eatables.

"Oh!" says Villiam, catching his case-bottle just in time to save it
from sliding through his ruffles to the floor; "I shall work upon human
Instink."

Here, this ornament of our National Mackerel organization inserted an
elbow under the right ear of a fair being in blue just before us, and
says she:

"I don't admire to see you men treating ladies in that manner. The
ideor!"

"Ah, Mrs. Nubbins," says Villiam, pleasantly, "when your father, the
milkman, used to serve our house, I"--

"Here--you can pass, sir," said the fair being in blue; and Captain
Villiam Brown walked forward deliberately upon the trailing skirts of a
beauteous object in pink.

"You're tearing my things--creature!"

"Ah!" says Villiam, abstractedly, to me, "you don't remember stand
Number Twelve, Fulton Market, where Miss Poodlem's grandmother used
to"--

"There's plenty of room here, sir,"