When at last we were done, tents, or rather tent floors, were assigned to us. We thence returned to barracks and to breakfast. Our more bulky effects were carried into camp on wagons before breakfast, while the lighter articles were moved over by our own hands. By, or perhaps before, eleven o'clock every thing had been taken to camp. By twelve we were in ranks ready to march in. At the last stroke of the clock the column was put in march, and we marched in with all the "glory of war." We stacked arms in the company streets, broke ranks, and each repaired to the tent assigned him, which had by this time been brought over and placed folded on the tent floors. They were rapidly prepared for raising, and at a signal made on a drum the tents were raised simultaneously, 'mid rousing cheers, which told that another "camp" was begun. After this we had dinner, and then we put our tents in order. At four o'clock the police-call was sounded, and all the "plebes" were turned out to police the company streets. This new phase of West Point life-- and its phases rapidly developed themselves--was a hard one indeed. The duties are menial, and very few discharge them without some show of displeasure, and often of temper. None are exempt. It is not hard work, and yet every one objects to doing it. The third and fourth classes, by regulations, are required to do the policing. When I was a plebe, the plebes did it all. Many indeed tried to shirk it, but they were invariably "hived." Every plebe who attempted any such thing was closely watched and made to work. The old cadets generally chose such men for "special dutymen," and required them to bring water, pile bedding, sweep the floor, and do all sorts of menial services. Of course all this last is prohibited, and therefore risky. Somebody is "hived" and severely punished almost every year for allowing plebes to perform menial duties for him. But what of that? The more dangerous it becomes the more is it practised. Forbidden things always have an alluring sweetness about them. More caution, however, is observed. If, for instance, a cadet should want a pail of water, he causes a plebe to empty his (the plebe's) into his own (the cadet's). If it should be empty, he sends him to the hydrant to fill it, and, when he returns, gets possession of it as before. An officer seeing a plebe with his own pail--recognizable by his own name being on it in huge Roman characters--going for water would say nothing to him. If the name, however, should be that of a cadet, the plebe would be fortunate if he escaped an investigation or a reprimand on the spot, and the cadet, too, if he were not put in arrest for allowing a new cadet to perform menial services for him. If he wants a dipper of iced-water, he calls out to the first plebe he sees in some such manner as this: "Oh! Mr.--, don't you want to borrow my dipper for a little while?" The plebe of course understands this. He may smile possibly, and if not