artillery--you reply with yourn. Under kiver of eour guns we advance
to the attack. You do the same to meet us--firin' like smoke. Arter a
sharp scrimmedge you retire--send us a flag of truce with terms--and
finally lay down your arms."

The major bowed till his ostrich feather touched the mane of his
wall-eyed plough horse, then turned bridle, and regained his ranks at
a gait something between a stumble and a rack. The representative of
General Washington rejoined his men at a hard trot, rising two feet
from his saddle at every concussion of his bony steed.

"Fellur sogers!" roared the temporary father of his country; "yonder
stands Cornwallis and his redcoats--only they haint got red coats,
partickerlarly them in blue swaller-tails. We air bound to lick
'em--hurrah for our side! Go inter 'em like a thousand of bricks
fallin' off 'n a slated rufe. The genius of Ammerikin liberty, in the
shape of the carnivorous eagle, soarin' aloft on diluted pillions,
seems to mutter _E Pluribus Unum_--we are one of 'em! Hail Columby
happy land! Sing Yankee Doodle that fine tune--cry havock! and let
looset the dogs of war."

Then commenced the horror of the sham fight. The continental guns
opened in thunder tones. The British artillery hurled back their
terrific echoes. Bang! bang! boom! boom! The canopy of heaven was
stained with the sulphurous smoke. The drummers rattled away on their
sheepskins--the fifers distended their cheeks till they resembled
blown bladders. In the midst of all this noise and tumult, the
undaunted Slorkey, and the indomitable Jalap, rushed to and fro, with
clanking scabbards, and brandished scythe blades, twin thunderbolts of
war.