when, of a sudden, we heard a cannonading. It was our own ship.

"Ah!" said a top-man, "returning the shore salute they gave us
yesterday."

"O Lord!" cried Lemsford, "my _Songs of the Sirens!_" and he ran
down the rigging to the batteries; but just as he touched the
gun-deck, gun No. 20--his literary strong-box--went off with a
terrific report.

"Well, my after-guard Virgil," said Jack Chase to him, as he
slowly returned up the rigging, "did you get it? You need not
answer; I see you were too late. But never mind, my boy: no
printer could do the business for you better. That's the way to
publish, White-Jacket," turning to me--"fire it right into 'em;
every canto a twenty-four-pound shot; _hull_ the blockheads,
whether they will or no. And mind you, Lemsford, when your shot
does the most execution, your hear the least from the foe. A
killed man cannot even lisp."

"Glorious Jack!" cried Lemsford, running up and snatching him by
the hand, "say that again, Jack! look me in the eyes. By all the
Homers, Jack, you have made my soul mount like a balloon! Jack,
I'm a poor devil of a poet. Not two months before I shipped
aboard here, I published a volume of poems, very aggressive on
the world, Jack. Heaven knows what it cost me. I published it,
Jack, and the cursed publisher sued me for damages; my friends
looked sheepish; one or two who liked it were non-committal; and
as for the addle-pated mob and rabble, they thought they had
found out a fool. Blast them, Jack, what they call the public is