wailing with full lungs.

Things were getting simply infernal. I struck out blindly for
the open country; and even as I made for the gate a shrill voice
from a window bade me keep off the flower-beds. When the gate
had swung to behind me with a vicious click I felt better, and
after ten minutes along the road it began to grow on me that some
radical change was needed, that I was in a blind alley, and that
this intolerable state of things must somehow cease. All that I
could do I had already done. As well-meaning a fellow as ever
stepped was pounding along the road that day, with an exceeding
sore heart; one who only wished to live and let live, in touch
with his fellows, and appreciating what joys life had to offer.
What was wanted now was a complete change of environment. Some
where in the world, I felt sure, justice and sympathy still
resided. There were places called pampas, for instance, that
sounded well. League upon league of grass, with just an
occasional wild horse, and not a relation within the horizon! To
a bruised spirit this seemed a sane and a healing sort of
existence. There were other pleasant corners, again, where you
dived for pearls and stabbed sharks in the stomach with your big
knife. No relations would be likely to come interfering with you
when thus blissfully occupied. And yet I did not wish--just
yet--to have done with relations entirely. They should be made
to feel their position first, to see themselves as they really
were, and to wish--when it was too late--that they had behaved
more properly.

Of all professions, the army seemed to lend itself the most
thoroughly to the scheme. You enlisted, you followed the drum,