Whilst I was witnessing this bombardment, my boy, and admiring the courage with which Villiam was slashing around with his sword, I noticed that the squadron had suddenly ceased firing.
It had ceased firing, because Rear Admiral Head had unexpectedly discovered that his Mackerel crew was a Black Republican; and had therefore engaged him in single combat, greatly to the detriment of the regular engagement.
Scarcely had I turned to view this new phase of war, when the firing of howitzers and musketry behind me instantly ceased, and I heard a low murmur of wonder arising from the whole brigade.
Quickly turning about again, I was hastening to where Captain Bob Shorty strode with the Conic Section, when I beheld General Wobert Wobinson, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, cantering along the shore of Duck Lake on his trained charger, and exhibiting a form to petrify the whole world with admiration.
"Ah! there'sshape!" was the low cry of the spectacled veterans, as they gazed breathlessly at the picture.
Captain Bob Shorty cleaned his glasses to make sure that it was no illusion, and says he: "By all that's Federal, it appears to me that I never saw so much Shape!"
A Confederacy, who had just appeared on the roof of Paris with a horse-pistol in his hand and slaughter in his thoughts, caught sight of the equestrian vision, and instantly dropped his merciless weapon of destruction as though paralyzed.
"Oh!" says he, panting, "what Shape!"
Rear Admiral Head heard the sound in the midst of his single combat, and paused to ascertain what it was. His spectacles scanned the horizon round and round, until they finally rested upon the figure of the new General of the Mackerel Brigade.
"Fracture my armor!" says he, ecstatically, "did I ever survey so much Shape!"