Thus, my boy, was accomplished another of those surprises which not unfrequently give the most villanous cause an appearance of temporary success; though at times they prove real blessings to the good cause by including the capture of three or four brass-buttoned brigadiers. But, pause, my feeble pen, ere thou venturest upon the hopeless task of putting into language the holy rage of the General of the Mackerel Brigade, when he learned the capture of Fort Bledandide. Pause, miserable quill, ere thou plungest into an insane effort to picture the awful state of vengeance exciting Captain Villiam Brown on the same occasion. As is his invariable custom at such junctures, the General at once retired to his tent to practise on the accordion, leaving Villiam to form a few regiments of the Mackerel reserve in line of battle for the recapture of the position. "Ah!" says Villiam, spiritedly, "here's a chance for a baynit charge after the manner of Napoleon's Old Guard; and I hereby notify Regiment 5, that the eyes of the whole world are upon them." Captain Bob Shorty and I had got ready our bits of smoked glass, to preserve our eyes from the too-great glitter of the dazzling achievement about to come off, when we noticed that Villiam motioned with his famous sword, Escalibar, for the spectacled warriors to pause a moment. "If any of you martial beings happen to have any small change about you at this exciting moment," says Villiam, paternally, "I will take charge of it, for safety." This noble proposition, my boy, might have been accepted unanimously, had not the discharge, at that instant, of a horse-pistol from the ramparts of Fort Bledandide caused the entire regiment to partially disappear! That is to say, every man went down upon his stomach, according to the latest principles of regimental strategy. "Ah!" says Villiam, "how are the mighty fallen!" Loudly rang a tremendous horse-laugh from the Confederacies in the Fort, several of whom were seen making off toward Paris with Orange County howitzers under each arm. I could see, by the aid of my smoked glass, that the Chivalry on the ramparts was sitting on a chest, with his discharged horse-pistol across his knee, and a series of feeble winks chasing each other around his Confederate eyelids. "By all that's Federal!" says Captain Bob Shorty, "the scorpion surrenders!" At the word, up sprang Regiment 5, like the men of Roderick Dhu, and straightforward they swept into Fort Bledandide, as a wave of the angry sea will sometimes sweep into a doomed barrel on the beach. Such was the shock of this dare-devil charge, that the winking Confederacy on the ramparts incontinently rolled off his chest and was captured without much carnage. "Do you surrender to the United States of America?" says Villiam, with much star-spangled banner in his manner. The Confederacy raised himself up on an elbow and hiccup'd gloomily.