Reaching the stamping-ground, my boy, I beheld a scene at once unique and impressive. Each individual Mackerel was seated on the ground, with a sheet of paper across his knees and an ink-bottle beside him, writing like an inspired poet.
I approached Captain Villiam Brown, who was covering some bare spots on his geometrical steed Euclid, with pieces scissored out of an old hair-trunk, and says I:
"Tell me, my noble Hector, what means this literary scene which mine eyes behold?"
"Ah!" says Villiam, setting down his glue-pot, "we are about to engage in a skrimmage from which not one may come out alive. These heroic beings," says Villiam, "are ready to die for their country at sight, and you now behold them making their wills. We shall march upon Paris," says Villiam, "as soon as I hear from Sergeant O'Pake, who has been sent to destroy a mill-dam belonging to the Southern Confederacy. Come with me, my nice little boy, and look at the squadron to take part in the attack."
This squadron, my boy, consisted of one twenty-eight-inch row-boat, mounting a twelve-inch swivel, and commanded by Commodore Head, late of the Canal-boat Service. It is iron-plated after a peculiar manner. When the ingenious chap who was to iron-plate it commenced his work, Commodore Head ordered him to put the plates on the inside of the boat, instead of outside, as in the case of the Monitor and Galena.
"What do you mean?" says the contractor.
"Why," says the commodore, "ain't them iron plates intended to protect the crew?"
"Yes," says the contractor.
"Well, then, you poor ignorant cuss," says the commodore, in a great passion, "what do you want to put the plates on the outside for? The crew won't be on the outside—will it? The crew will be on the inside—won't it? And how are you going to protect the crew on the inside by putting iron plates on the outside?"
Such reasoning, my boy, was convincing, and the Mackerel Squadron is plated inside.