GARIBALDI GOES TO SEA.
Just before the breaking-out of the rebellion at Rome, the trade in
garlic and domestic fleas took a sudden start, and the Po was
crowded with vessels of all nations--especially the
halluci-nations. One day, young Garibaldi was in the act of
stabbing a barrel of molasses to the heart with a quill, on Pier 4,
P. R. (Po River), when he was descried by the captain of a
fishing-smack, detailed by Government to watch the motions of the
English fleet.
"Boy, ahoy!" says the Captain.
The future liberator of Italy dropped his murderous quill, wiped
his nose with a pine shaving, and answered, in trumpet-tones:
"You're another!"
So delighted was the captain with this noble reply, that he
flogged the whole starboard watch at the gunwales, ordered a
preventer backstay on the kedge-anchor, leaped ashore to where
Garibaldi was standing, and offered to make him familiar with the
seas, and a second Caesar. Garibaldi replied that he had already
been half-seas over, but would not object to another cruise. He
said he had traveled half-seas over, "on his face," and would now
travel the other half on a vessel. He went. The vessel proved to
be a vessel of wrath, and Garibaldi became so familiar with the
cat-o-nine-tails, that he soon _mused_ upon a plan for deserting
the ship.