noon
On arriving at years of indiscretion , our hero began to display a tendency to `` seven-up , '' Old Sledge , and other card-inal virtues , calculated to fit him for playing his cards right in future years . Just about this time , too , his parents resolved to send him to school , and it is as the young scholar we must now regard him . Behold him , then , at his tasks , in a red shirt amputated at the neck , and two yellow patches -LRB- the badge of Sardinia -RRB- flaming from the background of his seat of learning . He readily mastered the Greek verbs and roots , comprehended liquorice root , studied geography , etymology , sycorax , and mahogany ; could decline to conjugate the verb toby , and quickly knew enough about algebra to prove that X plus Y , _ not _ being equal to Z , is _ minus _ any dinner at noon , and _ plus _ one of the tightest applications of birch that ever produced the illusion of a red-hot stove in immediate contact with the human body . 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. -LRB- Po River -RRB- , when he was descried by the captain of a fishing-smack , detailed by Government to watch the motions of the English fleet . `` Boy , ahoy ! ''