A rather ludicrous circumstance, which occurred while we lay at Newport, helped to enliven the usual monotony of a ship's deck while in harbor. A comical sort of a fellow, of the name of Morris, belonging to one of the companies on board, who used to sing Nigger songs, and who, being a very good mimic, could act the Nigger admirably, resolved to turn his talents to account by assuming the character while in harbor, and passing himself off among his comrades, except a few who were in his confidence, as a black cook belonging to the ship--his twofold motive for thus "working the dodge," as he styled it, being partly the fun he expected from the mystification of the men and officers, and partly that he might be allowed to bring whisky into the ship, there being no hindrance to the ship's crew bringing goods on board, as our sentries could not interfere with them. Borrowing, therefore, an old pair of canvas trousers, a Guernsey shirt, and tarpaulin hat from a sailor, and thoroughly engraining his face and hands with the sooty composition requisite to give him the true Ethiopian complexion, he became quite invulnerable to detection by his coat of darkness. In this disguise, he rolled about the deck during the whole forenoon in a partial state of intoxication, and came and went between the vessel and shore, carrying baskets and parcels of suspicious import with the most perfect impunity. Towards evening, he began to sing snatches of Nigger songs, varying the exhibition with a "flare-up" jawing match with some of the soldiers, in the sort of gibberish and broken English so peculiar to the woolly-headed sons of Ham. This comedy afforded considerable amusement, especially to those of his comrades in the secret of his disguise. As he was dexterous in the tongue fence of those encounters of rude wit, and knowing the chinks in the armor of his opponents, he was sometimes able, by a seemingly careless though cunning thrust, to administer a sickener to their vanity, which was the more galling as seeming to come from a dirty and half-drunken Nigger. "Ah, soger," he would say to some poor fellow whom he saw casting a longing eye towards the busy thoroughfares of the city; "captain not let you go ashore, eh? Too bad, eh? much sooner be black ship's cook than soger." "What's that you say, you Nigger?" would most probably be the reply of the soldier, not being in the best temper, and rather indignant at the idea of being an object of commiseration to a Nigger. "Who you call Nigger, eh? Nigger yourself, sar, more Nigger, a good sight, than ship's cook, sar; ship's cook go shore when he please, and get drunk like gentleman, sar; you a white soger Nigger, me black ship's cook Nigger--dat all de difference." Then, as if in soliloquy, in a deprecatory tone, "Eh! by Jorze, boff poor Niggers; soger mos' as 'specable as colored Nigger when he keep heself sober and behave 'screetly, like color gemman." Stung and irritated by the