WHEN I FIRST PUT THIS UNIFORM ON.

When I first put this uniform on,

I said as I looked in the glass.

“It's one to a million

That any civilian

My figure and form will surpass.

Gold lace has a charm for the fair,

And I've plenty of that, and to spare,

While a lover's professions,

When uttered in Hessians,

Are eloquent everywhere!

A fact that I counted upon,

When I first put this uniform on!”

I said, when I first put it on,

“It is plain to the veriest dunce

That every beauty

Will feel it her duty

To yield to its glamor at once.

They will see that I'm freely gold-laced

In a uniform handsome and chaste —

But the peripatetics

Of long-haired æsthetics,

Are very much more to their taste —

Which I never counted upon

When I first put this uniform on!”