twisted. And at the end of the second year I had been promoted from
corporal to be a cadet first sergeant, so that I was fourth in command
over a company of seventy. Although this gave me the advantage of a
light after "taps" until eleven o'clock, my day was so taken up with
roll-calls, riding and evening drills and parade, that I never seemed
to find time to cram my mechanics and chemistry, of which latter I
could never see any possible benefit. How a knowledge of what acid
will turn blue litmus-paper red is going to help an officer to find
fodder for his troop horses, or inspire him to lead a forlorn hope,
was then, and still is, beyond my youthful comprehension.

But these studies were down on the roster, and whether I thought well
of them or not I was marked on them and judged accordingly. But I
cannot claim that it was owing to them or my failure to understand
them that my dismissal came, for, in spite of the absence of 3's in my
markings and the abundance of 2's, I was still a soldierly cadet, and
in spite of the fact that I was a stupid student, I made an excellent
drill-master.

The trouble, when it came, was all my own making, and my dismissal was
entirely due to an act of silly recklessness and my own idiocy. I had
taken chances before and had not been caught; several times I ran the
sentries at night for the sake of a noisy, drunken spree at a road-
side tavern, and several times I had risked my chevrons because I did
not choose to respect the arbitrary rules of the Academy which chafed
my spirit and invited me to rebellion. It was not so much that I
enjoyed those short hours of freedom, which I snatched in the face of
such serious penalties, but it was the risk of the thing itself which
attracted me, and which stirred the spirit of adventure that at times
sways us all.