"
And he did try. The enormous interest of the thing gripped him from
the start; There was romance in it, too. He wore his first uniform,
too small for him as it was, with immense pride. He rolled out in
the morning at reveille, with the feeling that he had just gone to
bed, ate hugely at breakfast, learned to make his own cot-bed, and
lined up on a vast dusty parade ground for endless evolutions in a
boiling sun.
It was rather amusing to find himself being ordered about, in a
stentorian voice, by Jackson. And when, in off moments, that
capable ex-chauffeur condescended to a few moments of talk and
relaxation, the boy was highly gratified.
"Do you think I've got anything in me?" he would inquire anxiously.
And Jackson always said heartily, "Sure you have."
There were times when Graham doubted himself, however. There was
one dreadful hour when Graham, in the late afternoon, and under
the eyes of his commanding officer and a group of ladies, conducting
the highly formal and complicated ceremony of changing the guard,
tied a lot of grinning men up in a knot which required the captain
of the company and two sergeants to untangle.
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