CHAPTER III.

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.