The surgeon just took a seat, my boy, rubbed his shins half a second, took four boxes of pills, and then began to cuss! Marshal Rynders can cuss some, my boy, but that fat surgeon could beat him and all the Custom-House together.
But suddenly a strange sound reduced all else to silence. It came first like the rumbling of a barrel of potatoes, and then grew into a fiendish chuckle. It was found to proceed from a neighboring bush, and on proceeding thither the party beheld a sight to make the pious weep. Rolling about in the brush was one of the First Families of Virginia pickets, kicking his heels in the air, and laughing himself right straight into apoplexy.
"O Lord!" says he, going into a fresh convulsion, "take me prisoner and hang me for a rebel, but I never did see such a good one as that air gay old duel. If you'd kept on," says the picket, turning purple in the face, "I really reckon I should a busted myself."
Captain Villiam Brown was greatly scandalized at this unseemly mirth, my boy, and requested the surgeon to cut the picket's head off; but Colonel Wobert Wobinson interposed, and the laughing chap was only made prisoner.
"And now, Villiam," says Captain Bob Shorty, "we've had the satisfaction of gentlemen, and can be friends again. I spurns Miss Muggins. The American flag is my only bride, and as for you!—well, I think rather more of you than I do of my own father."
"Come to my arms!" exclaimed Villiam, falling upon his neck, and improving the opportunity to take the Oath from his canteen.
It was an affecting sight, my boy; and as those two noble youths walked amicably back to the camp together, the fat surgeon remarked to Samyule Sa-mith that they reminded him of Damon and Pythias just returned from the Syracuse Convention.
Yours, for the Code,
Orpheus C. Kerr.