"Can you see the wires?"
"No, sir, not yet."
"Any light yet, Mr. P—?"
"Yes, sir, it is getting brighter."
"Can you see the wires at all?"
"No, Sir; it keeps getting brighter, but I can't see the wires yet."
Fearing he might be unable to make his observations that day unless the difficulty was speedily removed, the instructor himself took position at the transit, and made the ridiculous discovery that the cap had not been removed from the farther end of the telescope, and yet it kept getting brighter.
One day in the early summer of 1875, a cadet was showing a young lady the various sights and wonders at West Point, when they came across an old French cannon bearing this inscription, viz., "Charles de Bourbon, Compte d'Eu, ultima ratio regum."
She was the first to notice it, and astonished the cadet with the following rendition of it:
"I suppose that means Charles Bourbon made the gun, and the Spanish (?) that the artilleryman must have his rations."