"That's thrue for you," says the sentinel: "they ought to eximpt the whole naytion and tax the rest of it."
The multitude then swarmed into Washington, my boy, and if they don't smother the Tax Bill, it will be because Congress is case-hardened.
The remainder of the Mackerel Brigade being ordered to join the Conic Section at Accomac for an irresistible advance on Manassas, I mounted my gothic steed Pegasus on Tuesday morning.
Pegasus, my boy, has greatly improved since I rubbed him down with Snobb's Patent Hair Invigorator, and his tail looks much less like a whisk-broom than it did at first. It is now fully able to maintain itself against all flies whatsoever. The general of the Mackerel Brigade rode beside me on a spirited black frame, and says he:
"That funereal beast of yours is a monument of the home affections. Thunder!" says the general, shedding a small tear of the color of Scheidam Schnapps, "I never look at that air horse without thinking of the time I buried my first baby; its head is shaped so much like a small coffin."
On reaching Accomac, my boy, we found Captain Villiam Brown at the head of the Conic Section of the Mackerel Brigade, dressed principally in a large sword and brass buttons, and taking the altitude of the sun with a glass instrument operated by means of a bottle.
"Ah!" says Villiam, "You are just in time to hear my speech to the sons of Mars, previous to the capture of Manassas by the United States of America."
Hereupon Villiam mounted a demijohn laid length-wise, and says he:
"Fellow-Anacondas:—Having been informed by a gentleman who has spent two weeks at Manassas, that the Southern Confederacy has gone South for its health, I have concluded that it is time to be offensive. The great Anaconda, having eluded Barnum, is about to move on the enemy's rear:
"'Rear aloft your peaks, ye mountings,