AMENDMENT XIV.—Should any one of the audience feel hungry during the performance he will make out a statement of the fact, showing the color of his eyes and hair, when and where he was born, when and where enlisted, how long since he ate anything, and why he did not then eat enough to last. He will submit it to the Commandant of Cadets, who will, if convenient, forward it to the Superintendent. He will forward it to the Secretary of War, who will refer it to the Third Auditor of the Treasury to ascertain how much of the necessary appropriation remains unexpended. It will then be exposed to Brand’s sulphate of soda test to ascertain the effect of frost, after which it will be covered with several layers of beton, well rammed. At the end of ten hundred years, if it still yields to the pressure of the finger and remains soluble in hot rum toddy, the application will be disapproved. The applicant will meanwhile receive napkins, cane-bottomed chairs and plated castors to whet his appetite.
PREAMBLE.—Should any member of the academic staff be so overcome by the refining nature of the performance as to feel a desire to sign the temperance pledge, he will find one in the cupboard of a little room in rear of the dining room of the officers’ mess.
When a cadet expected to “cut a meal,” that is, not go to the Mess Hall for it, or when he wanted a lunch between meals, he would butter a breakfast roll or two pieces of bread, fold the lunch in his handkerchief and put it in the breast of his coat, and then throw his shoulders forward to hide it, so as not to be reported for carrying food from the Mess Hall. In winter I often carried a roll to my room and put it on the steam coil under the marble slab. The heat melted the butter and made a luscious evening lunch. Whenever a cadet had not provided a lunch for himself and he wished to attend a “fight” at Fort Clinton a classmate would bring him something from the Mess Hall.
Once in a while some of the cadets would try their hands at cooking; they would get such articles of food from the Mess Hall as they could conceal about their clothes and other articles from the Dutch Woman’s, and after taps put a blanket up to cover the window, attach one end of a rubber tube to the gas jet and the other to a burner under a pot or pan, using candles for light. About the time the dainty dish, called “hash,” was ready the invited guests would arrive, and then such a feast. Once in a while an unexpected visitor in the form of a tactical officer would happen around, and then such scampering; the unlucky ones always paying dearly for the fun by walking “extras” on Saturday afternoons. There were two of my classmates who lived together, and one of them was a famous cook, but they were both “found” in January, and the one who was not the cook told me that he himself would not have been found had he not had a cook for a room-mate.
The paraphrase, by T⸺n of the class of 18—, gives a good account of “a cadet hash” and the results following it:
A CADET HASH—(With Apologies to “The Raven.”)
Once upon a morning dreary,
Whilst I pondered sad and weary,
Over the remains of cooking