General
John Campbell, his commander, who was then stationed at West Point. It
was an outrageous thing for a sergeant to do, and I am sorry to say it
was absolutely without orders or parental permission. The bride called
it a Cooper union.

The Campbells, very properly, were Scotch, and the Scotch have a bad
habit of thinking themselves a trifle better than the English. Like the
Irish, they regard an Englishman with suspicion. The Scotch swear that
they have never been conquered, certainly not by J. Bull, who has always
been quite willing to give them anything they ask for.

At the time of his marriage, Sergeant Cooper was engaged in the laudable
business of looking after General Campbell's horses, and also, let it be
known, of making garden for the Campbell family.

In his garden work, John Cooper was under the immediate orders of
Margaret Campbell. After hours, the Sergeant used to play a piccolo,
and among other tuneful lays he piped one called "The Campbells Are
Coming." It was on one such musical occasion that the young couple
simply walked off and got married, thus proving a point which I have
long held, to wit: Music is a secondary love manifestation.

On being informed of the facts, General Campbell promptly ordered that
Sergeant John Cooper be shot. Before the execution could take place, the
sentence was commuted to thirty days in the guardhouse. After serving
one day, the culprit was pardoned on petition of his wife.

In a month he was made a captain, and later a lieutenant. The business
of a soldier is not apt to be of a kind to develop his mental resources.
Soldiers fight under orders; and initiative, production and economy are
mere abstractions to your man of the sword.

Suffice it to say that in the war, John Cooper lost the ability to
become a civilian of the first rank. He was industrious but improvident;
he made money and he lost it. He had a habit of abandoning good
inventions for worse ones. The ability to eliminate is good, but in
sifting ideas let us cleave to those that are workable, until Fate
proves there is something really better.

Peter Cooper was the fifth child in a family of nine. Bees know the
secret of sex, but man does not. Peter Cooper's mother thought that her
fifth child was to be a girl, but it was not until after the boy had
grown to be a man and was proving his prowess, that his parents
remembered why they had called him Peter, and said, "On this rock shall
our family be bu