There were some young ladies living at Cold Springs, who often visited the Point, and they repeatedly invited certain of the cadets to call on them some evening after “Taps.” Upon promise of a good supper and music some of us agreed to “run it” over there on the next Saturday night, provided, of course, that the tactical officers made their night inspections in time for us to catch the last ferryboat at 11 p. m. It so happened that the tactical officers all made early inspections on a particular Saturday night, and soon after they had gone we went to the rooms of certain candidates, who had not gotten their uniforms and whose suits of civilian clothes we decided to wear, unbeknown to them, of course. We found them asleep, took off our cadet gray and donned the candidates’ citizen clothes. By “hustling” we were just in time for the ferry, but as we were going down hill past the Seacoast Battery we met Professor C⸺h and some other officers, who had just arrived on the ferry, and as luck went L⸺n, from force of habit, saluted the officers. Our courage almost failed us then, but on we went. After reaching the boat landing we hesitated about crossing the Hudson for fear that, after having been seen, another inspection of quarters would be made that night, and if it were made we were sure of being reported absent, and this meant, as we could not make explanation that we were on cadet limits at the time, that we would have to stand “trial by court-martial,” and if any witnesses were found to prove us off limits we were certain to be dismissed. Notwithstanding all this, we went, and reached the house where all the young ladies had agreed to be at about midnight. We were not expected, but the young ladies were up and said that they did not dream of our taking the chances we did of being dismissed. As we were not expected, there was no supper for us. One of the ladies played the piano for a little while, and then quit because it was Sunday morning. Seeing that our trip was a disappointment we left the house and started on our return to barracks. The boatman was not where he told us to call for him, and we did not find him till about 4 a. m. In the meantime we became thoroughly chilled, and we ran across several men who might become witnesses, thus increasing our chances of being caught. Again it was fast approaching reveille, we would be absent from roll call, and what would the candidates whose clothes we had on do? Then there were our clothes with our names in them in the candidates’ rooms to be used as evidence against us. Oh, what a pleasant time we had that night! At last we landed at the same dock that I had first landed at, but I was not then in a humor to appreciate the scenery. We agreed after we changed clothes again with the candidates and had gone to our own rooms to see whether or not we had been “hived absent” to meet at the sink. It was not long till we met there and found that we had not been caught absent, and that the