of Miss Tick could be scratched to nothing by poisonous finger-nails, but her detached head was eternal, and through eternity she bit and gnawed and sometimes laughed in the hollow of her black soul. For the horses, mules, and cattle there were shrubs which disagreed with them, and gigantic horse-flies. And for the general at the head of the vast body of irritation there was an opposing army whose numbers he overrated, and whose whereabouts he kept discovering suddenly. It is said that during the Peninsular campaign the buzzards were so well nourished that they raised a second brood.
While the army was still in the vicinity of Fort Monroe, numbers of officers secured leave to ride over to Newport News and view the traces of the recent and celebrated naval fight, which was to relegate wooden battle-ships to the fireplace. Aladdin was among those to go. At this time he was in great spirits, for it had been brought home to him that he was one of the elect, one of those infinitely
