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w-students?"
"No, sir; not if they would let me be, and not fasten quarrels on me," I cried in an ill-used tone.
"Stuff, sir! rubbish, sir! nonsense, sir!" cried the general. "I know you better than you know yourself; and, mark my words, you will never succeed in your profession until you learn to behave like a gentleman. How can you expect to command men if you cannot command yourself. There, I'll hear no more, for I'm sure you have been in the wrong."
The general pointed in so unmistakable a manner that I walked off with my uniform jacket half on, slowly thrusting my arm into the vacant sleeve, and thinking bitterly, with my head bent and my forehead wrinkled up like that of an old man.
I was not long in reaching my little room, a favourite one amongst our fellows; and as I shut myself in, and locked the door, my conscience reproached me with certain passages in the past which led to my having that room, when a fellow-student gave way in my favour, and I don't think it was from kindly feeling towards me.
"I'm a miserable, unhappy wretch," I said, as I threw myself in a chair which resented the rough usage by creaking violently and threatening to break one leg. "Nobody likes me. I'm always getting into trouble, and every one will be glad when I am gone to Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay."
I sat scowling down at the floor, thinking of how the others made friends and were regular companions, while I was almost avoided--at any rate, not sought out.
"Is it all my fault?" I thought; and that day I had a very long think as I wondered why I was so different from other fellows of my age. I believed I was affectionate, for I felt very miserable when I saw my father off with his regiment four years before, and he sailed for the Madras Presidency, and I went back home with my mind made up to work hard at my studies; to look well after my mother and Grace; and always to be a gentleman in every act and thought.
And as I sat there in the silence of my own room, I as