But the great sight of the hour was the manoeuvring of the iron-plated Mackerel squadron on the tempestuous waters of Duck Lake. After hastily making a fire in the stove on the quarter-deck, and placing a tumbler where it could warm, the stern old Rear Admiral ordered the Mackerel crew to report how much water there was in the hold. The crew repaired to the stern-sheets and reported "One pitcherful and two lemons;" whereupon the hardy old sea-dog swore in his iron-plated manner, and ordered the swivel-gun amidships to be trained upon the basement windows of Paris. Everything being in readiness, the word was given to fire! Bang! went the horrid instrument of carnage, and the hideous missile went crashing through the back basement windows, cutting a bow from the cap of a venerable Florence Nightingale, who was at that moment making a sponge-cake for some sick Confederacies, and driving the stove-pipe clear through the wall. The aged Nightingale thought that something had happened, and says she: "Well, I never did!" Rear Admiral Head smiled; but it was the horrid smile of naval bloodthirstiness. "Revolve my turret!" says he, grimly, "I fight not against women; but the other window must be broken." The venerable Neptune leaned over his columbiad to make sure of this shot, unconsciously pressing his stomach against the but-end of his gun. There was a report, my boy; the swivel-gun kicked, and the Rear Admiral fell upon the deck with a promiscuous violence. Meanwhile, Company 3, Regiment 5, under Captain Villiam Brown, had waded across Duck Lake in as many divisions as there were Mackerels, and immediately commenced a tremendous fire of musketry at the upper windows of Paris, wounding a Confederacy who kept a shoe-store up there, and reducing two flower-pots to fragments. Whilst I was witnessing this bombardment, my boy, and admiring the courage with which Villiam was slashing around with his sword, I noticed that the squadron had suddenly ceased firing. It had ceased firing, because Rear Admiral Head had unexpectedly discovered that his Mackerel crew was a Black Republican; and had therefore engaged him in single combat, greatly to the detriment of the regular engagement. Scarcely had I turned to view this new phase of war, when the firing of howitzers and musketry behind me instantly ceased, and I heard a low murmur of wonder arising from the whole brigade. Quickly turning about again, I was hastening to where Captain Bob Shorty strode with the Conic Section, when I beheld General Wobert Wobinson, the new General of the Mackerel Brigade, cantering along the shore of Duck Lake on his trained charger, and exhibiting a form to petrify the whole world with admiration. "Ah! _there's_ shape!" was the low cry of the spectacled veterans, as they gazed breathlessly at the picture. Captain Bob Shorty cleaned his glasses to make sure that it was no illusion, and says he: "By all that's Federal, it appears to me that I never saw so much Shape!"