blacking-brush, and he was chewing on a cigar that had burned so far
down that I remember wondering why it did not scorch his mustache. And
then, as I stood staring up at him and he down at me, it came over me
who he was, and I can recall even now how my heart seemed to jump, and
I felt terribly frightened and as though I were going to cry. My
grandfather bowed to the younger man in the courteous, old-fashioned
manner he always observed, and said: "General, this is my grandchild,
Captain Macklin's boy. When he grows up I want him to be able to say
he has met you. I am going to send him to West Point."

The man in the chair nodded his head at my grandfather, and took his
cigar from his mouth and said, "When he's ready to enter, remind me,
let me know," and closed his lips again on his cigar, as though he had
missed it even during that short space if time. But had he made a long
oration neither my grandfather nor I could have been more deeply
moved. My grandfather said: "Thank you, General. It is very kind of
you," and led me away smiling so proudly that it was beautiful to see
him. When he had entered the house he stopped, and bending over me,
asked. "Do you know who that was, Roy?" But with the awe of the moment
still heavy upon me I could only nod and gasp at him.

"That was General Grant," my grandfather said.

"Yes, I know," I whispered.

I am not particularly proud of the years that preceded my entrance to
West Point, and of the years I have spent here I have still less
reason to be content. I was an active boy, and behaved as other young
cubs of that age, no better and no worse. Dobbs Ferry was not a place
where temptations beset one, and, though we were near New York, we