Well, sir, I have studied Gibraltar in my geography, and read about it in the papers, and seen its pictures in advertisements, but never realized what a big thing it was. Now, who ever thought of putting that enormous rock right there on that prairie, but God. I suppose the English, when they saw that rock, thought the good Lord had put it there for the English to drill holes in, for guns, and when the Lord was busy somewhere else, the English smoughed the rock away from Spain, by playing a game with loaded dice, and when England got it, that country decided to arm it like a train robber, and hold up the other nations of the earth. When a vessel passes that rock it has to hold up its hands and salute the British flag, or get a mess of hardware fired into its vital parts, but that is all it amounts to, cause it couldn't win any battle for England, and could only sink trading vessels. The walls of the rock are perforated from top to bottom, with holes big enough for guns to squirt smoke and shells, but if the enemy should stay away from right in front of the holes, they might shoot till doomsday and never hit anything but fishing smacks and peddlers of oranges. Gibraltar is like a white elephant in a zoological garden. It just eats and keeps off the flies with its short tail, and visitors feed it peanuts and wonder what it was made for, and how much hay it eats. Gibraltar is like a twenty-dollar gold piece that a man carries in his watch pocket for an emergency, which he never intends to spend until he gets in the tightest place of his life, and it wears out one pocket after another, and some day drops through on to the sidewalk, and a tramp finds it and goes on a bat and gets the worth of his money, and has a good time, if he saves enough to buy a bromo seltzer the next morning after. It is like the Russian war chest, that is never to be opened as long as they can borrow money. If Gibraltar could be put on castors, and rolled around from one country to another, England could whip all Europe and Asia. It would be a Tro Jane horse on a larger scale, and be a terror; but, say, if it got to America we wouldn't do a thing to it. We would run a standpipe up the side, and connect it with an oil pipe line, fill Gibraltar's tunnels and avenues, and magazines and barracks with crude oil, and touch a match to it, and not an Englishman would live to tell about it. Gee, but I would be sorry for the Irish soldiers, but I guess they wouldn't be there, cause they wouldn't fight America. Well, if England ever has a big war, and she gets chesty about Gibraltar, and says it is impregnable, and defies the world to take it, I bet you ten dollars it could be taken in twenty-four hours. If I was a general, or an admiral, I would have about forty tank steamers, loaded with kerosene, and have them land, innocent like, right up beside Gibraltar, ostensibly to sell oil for perfumery to the natives, who would all be improved by using kerosene on their persons.