m through the gun ports,
and so admirable was his plan, so simple and ingenious, that it was
used whenever it became necessary to dismount a gun from one of the
old sailing ships. Having, however, offered this piece of good work,
McGiffin's report proceeded to tell of the division of the ship into
compartments that were filled with a miscellaneous assortment of stores,
which included the old "fifteen puzzles," at that particular time very
popular. The report terminated with a description of the joy of the
famished Irish as they received the puzzle-boxes. At another time the
cadets were required to write a report telling of the suppression of the
insurrection on the Isthmus of Panama. McGiffin won great praise for
the military arrangements and disposition of his men, but, in the same
report, he went on to describe how he armed them with a new gun known as
Baines's Rhetoric and told of the havoc he wrought in the enemy's
ranks when he fired these guns loaded with similes and metaphors and
hyperboles.

Of course, after each exhibition of this sort he was sent to the
_Santee_ and given an opportunity to meditate.

On another occasion, when one of the instructors lectured to the cadets,
he required them to submit a written statement embodying all that they
could recall of what had been said at the lecture. One of the rules
concerning this report provided that there should be no erasures or
interlineations, but that when mistakes were made the objectionable or
incorrect expressions should be included within parentheses; and that
the matter so enclosed within parentheses would not be considered a part
of the report. McGiffin wrote an excellent _resume_ of the lecture,
but he interspersed through it in parentheses such words as "applause,"
"cheers," "cat-calls," and "groans," and as these words were enclosed
within parentheses he insisted that they did not count, and made a very
fair plea that he ought not to be punished for words which slipped in
by mistake, and which he had officially obliterated by what he called
oblivion marks.

He was not always on mischief bent. On one occasion, when the house of a
professor caught fire, McGiffin ran into the flames and carried out two
children, for which act he was commended by the Secretary of the Navy.

It was an act of Congress that determined that the career of McGiffin
should be that of a soldier of fortune. This was a most unjust act,
which provided that only as many midshipmen