Johnson Jones Hooper
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 46
Get eBook
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...end of the enclosure, and standing near an empty whiskey barrel, was Lieutenant Snipes. He had not been so successful as the Captain in the matter of his toilette. Around his black wool hat was pasted, or stitched, a piece of deep purple gilt paper, such as is often found upon bolts of linen. Upon this was represented a battle between a lion and a unicorn; and in a scroll above were certain letters, which as Lieutenant Snipes himself remarked, " didV, spell nothing"--at least, nothing that he could comprehend. In his hand was the handle of a hoe, armed at one extremity with a rusty bayonet--the only weapon of its kind, at that moment, to be found in the whole garrison of Fort Suggs. Equipped thus, and provided with a dirty sheet of paper, a portable inkstand, (containing poke-berry juice, ) and the stump of a pen--all of which were upon the head of the barrel--the doughty Lieutenant awaited the moment when it should please Captain Suggs to arraign the prisoner and proceed with the trial. " Tallapoosy Vollantares, parade here!" thundered Captain Suggs, as he walked up to the barrel. Very soon the " component parts" of the " Vollantares" were grouped about their Captain. "Form in a straight line!" squealed Lieutenant Snipes. The company took the form of a half-moon! Captain Suggs now ordered Mrs. Haycock to be brought out; whereupon Snipes went into the backroom of the store, and directly appeared again, Beading the widow--who limped considerably, and howled like a full pack of wolves--by the hand. The Captain, however, by a judicious threat of instant decapitation, reduced the noise to a series of mere sobbings. " Hadn't we better fix some way to have some music," said Suggs, " and march round the house once, before we perceed with the...