A showman comes in with an armful of pictures, clever crayon sketches of nooks on Flirtation; of unhorsed cadets; of cadet dreams, and first-post realities. The showman pulls them away, one after the other, with brief words of comment, prefacing the last with a bit of glowing praise and liking--and lo! there stands before you the life-size "counterfeit" of the well-beloved Superintendent; cleverly enlarged by the cadet artist from a picture in some magazine. How the men cheer! They'll have a slap at him, like enough, among the jokes, but they love him none the less. Then stalks out to view a stately papa, and a whole bevy of blooming daughters flutter in after him. They are dressed to kill, and come flirting and fanning, bridling and prinking, in a way to instruct some _bona fide_ girls. The butterfly poise of these airy damsels is quite admirable, and could only have been won by long and careful study of the originals. A dance of cuirassiers follows: but thereby hangs a tail--longer than the donkey's. There had been for some time a highly unpopular dog at the Post; whether bearing his own demerits, or those of his master, history saith not. But some months before this winter night, and with his owner away, the dog had been mysteriously and marvellously painted by hands unknown. Condign punishment was ready for the offenders. But the prefix to the old receipt for cooking a hare ("First catch it") is eminently in place at West Point,--and no one was caught. It was told, _sub rosa_, and with great delight, how word flashed over the wires: "The dog has been painted"; and how, when the owner came back, he met the chief culprit first of all, and said he was glad to see him. But all this had passed, and the dog was himself again. Now, to-night, the four cuirassiers, booted and spurred and helmeted, went on with their dance, singing their song the while, when suddenly from behind the scenes slid in the dog--the paint stripes in order as they had been before, and the medallion on its side with the number of its master's regiment all complete. The carefully moulded little body gave hardly a hint of its pillow-case skin. Midway across the stage the dog stood still. And instantly the cuirassiers paused in their dance, drew up around the dog and solemnly saluted, with sword points to the earth, as if the whole tactical department had been there in person. A wild dance followed, and the dog was then solemnly borne off on the points of the cuirassiers' weapons. But words cannot give the utter drollery of the thing, nor tell the perfect way in which it was carried out. Then came more music, and the reading of the _Howitzer_.