and even penetrated at their heels into the cafe of Delmonico. I felt
then for a brief moment that I was "seeing life," the life of a great
metropolis, and in company with the young swells who made it the
rushing, delightful whirlpool it appeared to be.

It seemed to me, then, that to wear a green coachman's coat, to rush
the doorkeeper at the Haymarket dance-hall, and to eat supper at the
"Silver Grill" was to be "a man about town," and each year I returned
to our fireside at Dobbs Ferry with some discontent. The excursions
made me look restlessly forward to the day when I would return from my
Western post, a dashing young cavalry officer on leave, and would wake
up the cafes and clubs of New York, and throw my money about as
carelessly as these older boys were doing then.

My appointment to West Point did not, after all, come from General
Grant, but from President Arthur, who was in office when I reached my
nineteenth year. Had I depended upon my Congressman for the
appointment, and had it been made after a competitive examination of
candidates, I doubt if I would have been chosen.

Perhaps my grandfather feared this and had it in his mind when he
asked the President to appoint me. It was the first favor he had ever
asked of the Government he had served so well, and I felt more
grateful to him for having asked the favor, knowing what it cost him
to do so, than I did to the President for granting it.

I was accordingly entered upon the rolls of the Military Academy, and
my career as a soldier began. I wish I could say it began brilliantly,
but the records of the Academy would not bear me out. Had it not been
that I was forced to study books I would not have been a bad student;