Having ballasted with mortar, my boy, to seem more naval, the unblushing commodore mounted his swivel-gun at the bow of the Mackerel Fleet, and selected for his gunner and crew a middle-aged Mackerel chap, whose great fondness for fresh fish made him invaluable for ocean service. "Crack my turret!" says the commodore, as the Fleet pushed off amid the cheers of Company 4, Regiment 1, Mackerel Brigade; "I'll take that craft by compound fracture. Belay the starboard ram there, you salamander, and take a reef in the grating. Up with the signal--two strips of pig iron rampant, with a sheet of tin in the middle." All this was splendidly performed by the crew, my boy, who trimmed the rudder, did the rowing, and tended the gun--all at once. The craft fairly flew through the water in the direction of the rebel craft, whose horse-pistol amidship still remained silent. It was an awfully terrific and sublime sight, my boy. I shall never forget it, my boy, if I live till I perish. The faithful colored pilot sat in the stern of the Fleet, examining some silver spoons which he had found somewhere in the Southern Confederacy, and we could see the noble old commodore mixing something that steamed in the fore-sheets. Two seconds had now passed since our flotilla had started, and the hostile squadrons were rubbing against each other. We were expecting to see our navy go through some intricate manoeuvre before boarding, when the Mackerel crew accidentally dropped a spark from his pipe on the touch-hole of the swivel; and bang! went that horrid engine of destruction, sending some pounds of old nails right square into the city of Paris. Simultaneously, four-and-twenty foreign Consuls residing near Paris got up a memorial to Commodore Head, protesting against any more firing while any foreigners remained in the country, and declaring that the use of gunpowder was an outrage on civilized warfare and the rights of man. They tied a stone to this significant document and threw it to Commodore Head, who instantly put the Mackerel crew on half rations and forbid smoking abaft the big gun. Meanwhile the enemy had wounded our brave pilot on the shins with his oar, and exploded his horse-pistol in an undecided direction, with such dreadful concussion that every glass in Commodore Head's spectacles was broken. It was at this dreadful crisis of the fight that the gay Mackerel crew leaned over the side of our fleet, placed one hand on the inside of the enemy's squadron, and with the other, regardless of the shower of old-bottles and fish-bones flying about him, deliberately bored a small hole, with a gimlet, through the bottom of the adversary. At about the same moment the commodore touched off the swivel-gun at the enemy's rudder, and threw one of his boots against the rear stomach of the rebel captain.