I swore that very readily, and it is a vow I have kept by nature.

"What will you be?" said she.

I ran my mind hastily over the professions.

"Will you be a soldier?" she asked.

"And be bawled at by duffers? No fear!" said I. "Leave that to the
plough-boys."

"But an officer?"

"I don't know," I said, evading a shameful difficulty.

"I'd rather go into the navy."

"Wouldn't you like to fight?"

"I'd like to fight," I said. "But a common soldier it's no honour to
have to be told to fight and to be looked down upon while you do it, and
how could I be an officer?"

"Couldn't you be?" she said, and looked at me doubtfully; and the spaces
of the social system opened between us.

Then, as became a male of spirit, I took upon myself to brag and lie
my way through this trouble. I said I was a poor man, and poor men went
into the navy; that I "knew" mathematics, which no army officer did; and