In camp, while the captain was away, the privates suggested a lot of college boys more than any other body of individuals. A few had the college boy’s delight in shirking their work, and would rejoice over having had a dirty carbine pass inspection on account of a shining barrel, as the Sophomore boasts of having gained a high marking for a translation he had read from a crib. They had also the college boy’s songs, and his trick of giving nicknames, and his original and sometimes clever slang, and his satisfaction in expressing violent liking or dislike for those in authority over him--in the one case tutors and professors, and in the other sergeants and captains. Their one stupid hitch, in which the officers shared to some extent, was in re-enforcing all they said with profanity; but as soldiers have done this, apparently, since the time of Shakespeare’s Seven Ages, it must be considered an inherited characteristic. Their fun around the camp fire at night was rough, but it was sometimes clever, though it was open to the objection that a clever story never failed of three or four repetitions. The greatest successes were those in which the officers, always of some other troop, were the butts. One impudent “cruitie” made himself famous in a night by improvising an interview between himself and a troop commander who had met him that day as he was steering a mule train across the prairie. “‘How are you?’ said he to me. ‘You’re one of Captain Hardie’s men, ain’t you? I’m Captain----.’ “‘Glad to know you, captain,’ said I. ‘I’ve read about you in the papers.’” This was considered a magnificent stroke by the men, who thought the captain in question rather too fond of sending in reports concerning himself to headquarters. “‘Well,’ says he, ‘when do you think we’re going to catch this ---- ---- ---- ---- Garza? As for me,’ says he, ‘I’m that ---- ---- ---- ---- tired of the whole ---- ---- ---- business that I’m willing to give up my job to any ---- ---- ---- fool that will take it----’ “‘Well, old man,’ says I, ‘I’d be glad to relieve you,’ says I, ‘but I’d a ---- sight rather serve under Captain Hardie than captain such a lot of regular ---- ---- ---- coffee-coolers as you’ve got under you.’” The audacity of this entirely fictitious conversation was what recommended it to the men. I only reproduce it here as showing their idea of humor. An even greater success was that of a stolid German, who related a true incident of life at Fort Clarke, where the men were singing one night around the fire, when the colonel passed by, and ordered them into the tents, and to stop that ---- noise. [Illustration: CAPTAIN FRANCIS H. HARDIE, G TROOP, THIRD UNITED STATES CAVALRY] “And den,” continued the soldier, “he come acrost Cabding----, sitting in front of his tent, and he says to him quick like that, ‘You ged into your tent, _too_.’ That’s what he said to him, ‘You ged into your tent, _too_.’”