Acting upon this truly valuable suggestion, our stern old Son of Neptune caused his swivel-gun to be reconstructed upon a novel principle; the touch-hole was extended to the usual size of a barrel, and the barrel was reduced to the usual size of a touch-hole; so that, although the terrible weapon looked precisely the same as ever, it was, in reality, completely reversed!
But while the "Shockingbadhat" was being built, and receiving her terrific new armament, the shameless Confederacies on their Pier in Duck Lake had been industriously building Fort Piano and mounting it with their villanous horse-pistols; so that when the new Mackerel iron-plated squadron was ready for carnage and fishing, there was a hostile projection in the way.
"Chip my turret!" says Rear Admiral Head, in his iron-plated manner, "I think I shall have to blow a few more Rebels into eternity—smash my casemate! if I don't."
I stood upon the shore of Duck Lake, with a bit of smoked glass to my eye as usual, when our new monster of the deep came abreast of Fort Piano, and Rear Admiral Head commenced to reconnoitre through his pocket-microscope. The venerable commander gazed steadfastly through it for a moment, and then, says he:
"Crack my plates! if I don't perceive an insect on the wall of the hostile work."
There was indeed a solitary Confederacy seated upon the front wall of Fort Piano, dining sumptuously upon some fresh hoe-cake, and says he:
"You can't pass here without a New Jersey ferry-ticket."
(New Jersey, my boy, is now a Southern Confederacy, or a Peace of one.)
I could hear the glorious old naval hero say, in a suppressed voice, to the intelligent Mackerel crew on top of the turret:
"Depress your weapon four points to windward, grease the ball, and fire at his stomach."