I am gone to Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay."

I sat scowling down at the floor, thinking of how the others made
friends and were regular companions, while I was almost avoided--at any
rate, not sought out.

"Is it all my fault?" I thought; and that day I had a very long think
as I wondered why I was so different from other fellows of my age. I
believed I was affectionate, for I felt very miserable when I saw my
father off with his regiment four years before, and he sailed for the
Madras Presidency, and I went back home with my mind made up to work
hard at my studies; to look well after my mother and Grace; and always
to be a gentleman in every act and thought.

And as I sat there in the silence of my own room, I asked myself whether
I had done exactly as my father had wished.

"I might have worked harder," I owned. "I might have been more of a
gentleman. But I did try."

Then I began thinking that I had given my mother a good deal of trouble
before she and Grace went out to join my father at Madras.

"But mamma did not mind," I said to myself, for nothing could have been
more loving than our parting, when I was so miserable at being left that
I felt as if everything were at an end.

"The fellows don't understand me," I said at last. "And now if I try to
be extra civil to any one of them, they all laugh and think I mean
something--want to borrow money, or get another favour."

This had been at the bottom of the quarrel that morning, and as I sat
there thinking, I grew more and more roused, giving myself the credit of
being shamefully ill-used by every one, from General Crucie and the
professors, down to the newest comer, while the governor seemed to me to
be the greatest offender.

"Boasts about understanding boys and young men," I said bitterly, "and
does not know how to be just. I wish I was out of it all, and could go
away, so that I could be where people understood me, and--"

There was a sharp tap at the door, but I was too savage and sulky to
answer, and there was a fresh tapping on the panel.

"Vincent, why don't you answer? I know you are in there."

It was the voice of my fellow-pupil with whom I had been about to fight,
when the general came upon us.

"Well, what do you want?" I said sourly.

"The governor has sent me for you. Come along, look sharp. He wants
you in his room."

My temper bubbled up like the carbonic acid gas in a chemical
experiment, and my fists involuntarily clenched