arter-deck, and placing a tumbler
where it could warm, the stern old Rear Admiral ordered the Mackerel
crew to report how much water there was in the hold. The crew repaired
to the stern-sheets and reported "One pitcherful and two lemons;"
whereupon the hardy old sea-dog swore in his iron-plated manner, and
ordered the swivel-gun amidships to be trained upon the basement
windows of Paris. Everything being in readiness, the word was given to
fire!

Bang! went the horrid instrument of carnage, and the hideous missile
went crashing through the back basement windows, cutting a bow from the
cap of a venerable Florence Nightingale, who was at that moment making
a sponge-cake for some sick Confederacies, and driving the stove-pipe
clear through the wall. The aged Nightingale thought that something had
happened, and says she: "Well, I never did!"

Rear Admiral Head smiled; but it was the horrid smile of naval
bloodthirstiness. "Revolve my turret!" says he, grimly, "I fight not
against women; but the other window must be broken."

The venerable Neptune leaned over his columbiad to make sure of this
shot, unconsciously pressing his stomach against the but-end of his
gun. There was a report, my boy; the swivel-gun kicked, and the Rear
Admiral fell upon the deck with a promiscuous violence.

Meanwhile, Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Villiam Brown, had
waded across Duck Lake in as many divisions as there were Mackerels,
and immediately commenced a tremendous fire of musketry at the upper
windows of Paris, wounding a Confederacy who kept a shoe-store up
there, and reducing two flower-pots to fragments.

Whilst I was witnessing this bombardment, my boy, and admiring the
courage with which Villiam was slashing around with his sword, I
noticed that the squadron had suddenly ceased firing.

It had ceased firing, because Rear Admiral Head had unexpectedly
discovered that his Mackerel crew was a Black Republican; and had
therefore engaged him in single combat, greatly to the detriment of the
regular engagement.

Scarcely had I turned to view this new phase of war, when the firing of
howitzers and musketry behind me instantly ceased, and I heard a low
murmur of wonder arising from the whole brigade.

Quickly turning about again, I was hastening to where Captain Bob
Shorty strode with the Conic Section, when I beheld General Wobert
Wobinson, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, cantering along the
shore of Duck Lake on hi