the free and social mode of life among the officers and their families,
meeting at evening on the door-steps or in front of their houses, or
stepping in familiarly; the rough-hewn first lieutenant, with no ideas
beyond the service; the doctor, priding himself on his cultivation and
refinement, pretending to elegance, sensitive, touchy; the
sailing-master, an old salt, of the somewhat modernized Tom Bowline
pattern, tossed about by fifty years of stormy surges, and at last swept
into this quiet nook, where he tells yarns of his cruises and duels,
repeats his own epitaph, drinks a reasonable quantity of grog, and
complains of dyspepsia; the old fat major of marines, with a brown wig
not pretending to imitate natural hair, but only to cover his baldness
and grayness with something that he imagines will be less unsightly: he
has a potent odor of snuff, but has left off wine and strong drink for
the last twenty-seven years. A Southerner, all astray among our New
England manners, but reconciling himself to them, like a long practised
man of the world, only somewhat tremulous at the idea of a New England
winter. The lieutenant of marines, a tall, red-haired man, between
thirty and forty, stiff in his motions from the effect of a palsy
contracted in Florida,--a man of thought, both as to his profession and
other matters, particularly matters spiritual,--a convert, within a few
years, to Papistry,--a seer of ghosts,--a dry joker, yet sad and earnest
in his nature,--a scientific soldier, criticising Jackson's military
talent,--fond of discussion, with much more intellect than he finds
employment for,--withal, somewhat simple. Then the commandant of the
yard, Captain S----, a man without brilliancy, of plain aspect and
simple manners, but just, upright, kindly, with an excellent practical
intellect; his next in rank, Commander P----, an officer-like,
middle-aged man, with such cultivation as a sensible man picks up about
the world; and with what little tincture he imbibes from a bluish wife.
In the vicinity of the Navy Yard, an engineer-officer, stationed for a