Every snorer’s trumpet suddenly paused. The impressive sound of the hushed breathing of a thousand sleepers, marking off the fleet moments of the night, gave way to a most vociferous uproar. The boy element is large in the Seventh Regiment. Its slang dictionary is peculiar and unabridged. As soon as we woke, the pit began to chaff the galleries, and the galleries the pit. We were allowed noise nearly ad libitum. Our riotous tendencies, if they existed, escaped by the safety-valve of the larynx. We joked, we shouted, we sang, we mounted the Speaker’s desk and made speeches, — always to the point; for if any but a wit ventured to give tongue, he was coughed down without ceremony. Let the M. C.s adopt this plan and silence their dunces.
With all our jollity we preserved very tolerable decorum. The regiment is assez bien composé. Many of its privates are distinctly gentlemen of breeding and character. The tone is mainly good, and the esprit de corps high. If the Colonel should say, “Up, boys, and at ’em!” I know that the Seventh would do brilliantly in the field. I speak now of its behavior in-doors. This certainly did it credit. Our thousand did the Capitol little harm that a corporal’s guard of Biddies with mops and tubs could not repair in a forenoon’s campaign.
Perhaps we should have served our country better by a little Vandalism. The decorations of the Capitol have a slight flavor of the Southwestern steamboat saloon. The pictures (now, by the way,
