" The tent curtains were rolled tight up, as far as
they would go, and so were the curtains of every other tent;
most beautiful order prevailed everywhere and over every
trifling detail.
"Well," said Mr. Thorold, sitting down opposite me on a
candle-box — "how do you think you would like camp life?"
"The tents are too close together," I said.
He laughed, with a good deal of amusement.
"That will do!" he said. "You begin by knocking the camp to
pieces."
"But it is beautiful," I went on.
"And not comfortable. Well, it is pretty comfortable," he
said.
"How do you do when it storms very hard — at night?"
"Sleep."
"Don't you ever get wet?"
"_That_ makes no difference."
"Sleep in the wet!" said I. And he laughed again at me. It was
not banter. The whole look and air of the man testified to a
thorough soldierly, manly contempt of little things — of all
things that might come in the way of order and his duty. An
intrinsic independence and withal control of circumstances, in
so far as the mind can control them.
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