Has any one ever seen a keg of root-beer tapped in hot weather after it has been well shaken up? Or has any one ever heard of a keg of root-beer at all. I have always thought of it in bottles. However, we have one on board, and if the expansive force of a superheated, well-agitated barrel of root-beer can be appreciated, it will be understood that we had a very animated and sprightly thirty minutes this forenoon. Ever since the commencement of the voyage a beer-keg of this fluid has been churning and rattling away under one of the alley-ways which extend aft on either side of the cabin-house. For some time past the skipper has been cautioning us to save all the Apollinaris bottles, as he wanted to fill them, in cool weather, with the root-beer. But he grew impatient, and concluded to broach the keg this morning, after the contents had been well shaken up for a week in equatorial heat. Therefore he gathered round about him a phalanx of empty bottles, and, assisted by the second mate and the boy Sammie, advanced hardily against the passive “kag.” After much ado, and the use of sundry expletives and the dripping of perspiration, they got it mounted on its side upon a low wooden box, wedged it, held a bottle under the spigot, turned the faucet, and stood by. But something was wrong; no liquor flowed, so that the spigot must have been plugged with something. “Mr. Rarx,” said the skipper, “go and get a bit of stiff wire.” Back came the second mate at the end of a minute, during which Captain Scruggs was engaged in impotently kicking and pounding the keg; and when Mr. Rarx had brought the wire, he spent ten minutes jabbing away with it, eliciting with great force now and then a little jet of brown foam, which generally hit him somewhere in the face, which he persisted in holding in front of the spigot. Tiring of this, which gave promise of lasting all day without bearing fruit, he despatched the carpenter for an auger, having finally reached the conclusion that it was for lack of a vent that nothing would flow. The second mate was intrusted with its manipulation, and very confidently proceeded to bore a hole in the bung in the upper side. The wildest dream could not have pictured huger success. No sooner had the instrument pierced the wood than, with a hissing shriek, a column of dark liquid as big as a pencil shot high into the air like the spouting of a whale, breaking full against Mr. Rarx’s head, after blowing the auger out of the hole. Then there were frantic shoutings for a plug, while the little cascade played merrily away, falling in a gentle shower of amber froth upon those who tried in vain to stay its impetuous flow. Finally it was plugged, and the skipper called for a tumbler, that he might draw a glassful of the godly nectar, and, sipping it, gain courage for the bottling operation. But, oh, misery! No sooner was the faucet turned than out shot a horizontal stream of root-beer as