The gallant dragoon, sighed, and says he:
"I used my magnifying glass, but could find no fort."
At this moment, my boy, a sharp sunbeam cleft the fog as a sword does a vail, and the mist rolled away from the scene in two volumes, disclosing to our view a fine cabbage-patch, with a dense wood beyond.
Villiam deliberately raised a bottle to his face, and gazed through it upon the unexpected prospect.
"Ha!" says he sadly, "the garrison has cut its way through the fog and escaped, but Fort Muggins is ours! Let the flag of our Union be planted on the ramparts," says Villiam, with much perspiration, "and I will immediately issue a proclamation to the people of the United States of America."
Believing that Villiam was somewhat too hasty in his conclusions, my boy, I ventured to insinuate that what he had taken for a fort in the fog, was really nothing but a cabbage inclosure, and that the escaped rebels were purely imaginary.
"Imaginary!" says Villiam, hastily placing his canteen in his pocket. "Why, didn't you hear the roar of their artillery?"
"Do you see that thick wood yonder?" says I.
Says he, "It is visible to the undressed eye."
"Well," says I, "what you took for the sound of rebel firing, was only the echo of your own firing in that wood."