"What's the matter, Jim?" Jerry cried. "You're actin' like as if somethin' had gone wrong!" "Gone wrong?" Jim exclaimed, and it did really look as if his eyes would roll right down on his cheeks. "The whole bloomin' bottom has dropped out of everything. The Britishers are comin' into the bay thicker'n spatter, an' I don't see how you got in here without bein' caught!" "In here?" I cried in amazement. "Have you lost your wits that you think the Britishers would come into the Patuxent river?" "I reckon it's you that are needin' wits!" Jim cried as he scrambled over the rail. "So you think they wouldn't come into the Patuxent, eh?" "Certainly not, and for the very good reason that there's nothing here they want." Jim looked at me in pity, and I afterward understood that there was good reason for his so doing. "How long have you been up Baltimore way?" "Near to ten days," Jerry replied, hoping to hasten Jim in the telling of the news with which he was near to bursting. "We had hard work to sell our oysters at any price, an' then it fell a dead calm with weather hot enough to tan a nigger." "Then there's little wonder that you boys are way behind the times as to what has been goin' on 'round here," and Jim threw out his chest as he swelled with the importance of being the first to impart startling news. "In the first place," he said, speaking slowly as if to prolong his enjoyment at giving information which would not be pleasing to hear, "Admiral Cochrane, the Britisher, has passed the capes with twenty-one vessels, an' Commodore Malcolm is below with a fleet loaded with soldiers. Tom Harrison swears there were more'n ten thousand men." "Somebody has been stuffin' you, Jim," I said, not crediting his news. "Then they've stuffed Commodore Barney too, an' when he runs I allow the rest of us had better be huntin' a hole." "Commodore Barney don't run!" Darius cried angrily, for he never allowed anything disparaging to be said in his presence of the man whom he believed to be the greatest naval commander who ever lived. "Perhaps he don't very often; but he has this time," Jim said in a tone so decided that we could not but believe he was convinced of the truth of his own words. "Did you see him?" Darius demanded, and I expected that when he answered this question Jim's story would fall to pieces; but the lad replied bold as a lion: "Of course I did! All the boats laid here after the fight in St. Leonard's bay, an' it was only yesterday they scooted up the river!" Here was news with a vengeance, and I no longer felt the same desire to punch Jim's head which had come over me when he first came aboard with what I believed was a cock and bull story.