agreeable dreams, in one of which
I was waited upon by the ghost of Silas Trefethen with an exorbitant
bill for the use of his guns. In another, I was dragged before a
court-martial and sentenced by Sailor Ben, in a frizzled wig and
three-cornered cocked hat, to be shot to death by Bailey's Battery--a
sentence which Sailor Ben was about to execute with his own hand, when
I suddenly opened my eyes and found the sunshine lying pleasantly across
my face. I tell you I was glad!

That unaccountable fascination which leads the guilty to hover about the
spot where his crime was committed drew me down to the wharf as soon as
I was dressed. Phil Adams, Jack Harris, and others of the conspirators
were already there, examining with a mingled feeling of curiosity and
apprehension the havoc accomplished by the battery.

The fence was badly shattered and the ground ploughed up for several
yards round the place where the guns formerly lay--formerly lay, for
now they were scattered every which way. There was scarcely a gun that
hadn't burst. Here was one ripped open from muzzle to breech, and there
was another with its mouth blown into the shape of a trumpet. Three of
the guns had disappeared bodily, but on looking over the edge of the
wharf we saw them standing on end in the tide-mud. They had popped
overboard in their excitement.

"I tell you what, fellows," whispered Phil Adams, "it is lucky we didn't
try to touch 'em off with punk. They'd have blown us all to flinders."

The destruction of Bailey's Battery was not, unfortunately, the only
catastrophe. A fragment of one of the cannon had earned away the chimney
of Sailor Ben's cabin. He was very mad at first, but having prepared the
fuse himself he didn't dare complain openly.

"I'd have taken a reef in the blessed stove-pipe," said the Admiral,
gazing ruefully at the smashed chimney, "if I had known as how the
Flagship was agoin' to be under fire."

The next day he rigged out an iron funnel, which, being in sections,
could be detached and taken in at a moment's notice. On the whole,
I think he was resigned to the demolition of his brick chimney. The
stove-pipe was a great deal more shipshape.

The town was not so easily appeased. The selectmen determined to make
an example of the guilty parties, and offered a reward for their arrest,
holding out a promise of pardon to anyone of the offenders who would
furnish information against the rest. But there were no faint hearts
amon