“For. It he dies, I'll tan his skin;
An' if he lives I'll ride him agin,”
All-together, with a furious “break down” at the close:
“Then I'll lay five dollars down,
And count them one by one;
Then I'll lay five dollars down,
If anybody will show me the man
That struck Billy Patterson.”
And so on. It used to upset my gravity entirely to see a crowd of grave and dignified Captains, Majors and Colonels going through this nonsensical drollery with all the abandon of professional burnt-cork artists.
As we were nearing the entrance to Chesapeake Bay we passed a great monitor, who was exercising her crew at the guns. She fired directly across our course, the huge four hundred pound balls shipping along the water, about a mile ahead of us, as we boys used to make the flat stones skip in the play of “Ducks and Drakes.” One or two of the shots came so. close that I feared she might be mistaking us for a Rebel ship intent on some raid up the Bay, and I looked up anxiously to see that the flag should float out so conspicuously that she could not help seeing it.