person. As
the captain read this interesting announcement, his voice assumed a
gradual _crescendo_, concluding with a profound emphasis on the word
"marines," which he accompanied with a half turn and a flourish of the
book towards that honorable body, drawn up in full uniform, at parade
rest, its venerable captain, whose sandy hair was fast streaking with
gray, standing at its head, his hands meekly crossed over his
sword-hilt, the blade hanging down before him; all doubtless suitably
impressed with this definition of their status, which for greater
certainty they heard every month. It was very fine, very fine indeed;
appealing to more senses than one.

The shore drills--infantry and field artillery--furnished special
occasions for organized--or disorganized--upheavals of animal spirits.
For these exercises we then had scant respect. They were "soldiering;"
and from time immemorial soldier had been an adjective to express
uselessness, or that which was so easy as to pass no man's ability. A
soldier's wind, for example, was a wind fair both ways--to go and to
return; no demands on brains there, much less on seamanship. The
curious irrelevancy of such applications never strikes persons;
unless, indeed, a perception of incongruity is the soul of wit, a
definition which I think I have heard. To depart without the ceremony
of saying good-bye takes its name from the most elaborately civil of
people--French leave; while the least perturbable of nations has been
made to contribute an epithet, Dutch, to the courage derived from the
whiskey-bottle. In the latter case, however, I fancy that, besides the
tradition of long-ago national rivalries, there may have been the idea
that to excite a Dutchman you must, as they say, light a fire under
him; or as was forcibly remarked by a midshipman of my time of his
phlegmatic room-mate, he had to kick him in the morning to get him
started for the day.

To return to the shore drills: these were then committed to one of the
civil professors of the Academy, a fact which itself spoke for the
familiarity with them of the sea lieutenants. As these always
exercised us at ships' guns, the different estimation which the two
obtained in the outside service was too obvious to escape quick-witted
young fellows, and it was difficult to overcome the resultant
disrespect. The professor was not one to effect the impossible. He was
a graduate of West Point, a man of ability, not lacking in dignity,
and