bales! Ah, by Saint Barb! the future of artillery is lost to America!"

"Yes, Bilsby," cried Colonel Blomsberry, "it is too bad! One fine
morning you leave your tranquil occupations, you are drilled in the use
of arms, you leave Baltimore for the battle-field, you conduct yourself
like a hero, and in two years, three years at the latest, you are
obliged to leave the fruit of so many fatigues, to go to sleep in
deplorable idleness, and keep your hands in your pockets."

The valiant colonel would have found it very difficult to give such a
proof of his want of occupation, though it was not the pockets that were
wanting.

"And no war in prospect, then," said the famous J.T. Maston, scratching
his gutta-percha cranium with his steel hook; "there is not a cloud on
the horizon now that there is so much to do in the science of artillery!
I myself finished this very morning a diagram with plan, basin, and
elevation of a mortar destined to change the laws of warfare!"

"Indeed!" replied Tom Hunter, thinking involuntarily of the Honourable
J.T. Maston's last essay.

"Indeed!" answered Maston. "But what is the use of the good results of
such studies and so many difficulties conquered? It is mere waste of
time. The people of the New World seem determined to live in peace, and
our bellicose _Tribune_ has gone as far as to predict approaching
catastrophes due to the scandalous increase of population!"

"Yet, Maston," said Colonel Blomsberry, "they are always fighting in
Europe to maintain the principle of nationalities!"