Euclid."

So the pair of them studied together, and by dint of private tuition in
the evening, for at Scoones' where his talent for caricature was too
much for him, Arthur would do little or nothing, Godfrey dragged his
friend through the examination, the last but one in the list. Even then
a miracle intervened to save him. Arthur's Euclid was hopeless. He
hated the whole business of squares and angles and parallelograms with
such intensity that it made him mentally and morally sick. To his, as
to some other minds, it was utter nonsense devised by a semi-lunatic
for the bewilderment of mankind, and adopted by other lunatics as an
appropriate form of torture of the young.

At length, in despair, Godfrey, knowing that Arthur had an excellent
memory, only the night before the examination, made him learn a couple
of propositions selected out of the books which were to be studied,
quite at hazard, with injunctions that no matter what other
propositions were set he should write out these two, pretending that he
had mistaken the question. This Arthur did with perfect accuracy, and
by the greatest of good luck one of the two propositions was actually
that which he was asked to set down, while the other was allowed to
pass as an error.

So he bumped through somehow, and in the end the Indian Army gained a
most excellent officer. It is true that there were difficulties when he
explained to his aunt and his trustees that in some inexplicable manner
he had passed for Sandhurst instead of into the Diplomatic Service. But
when he demonstrated to them that this was his great and final effort
and that nothing on earth would induce him to face another examination,
even to be made a king, they thought it best to accept the accomplished
fact.

"After all, you have passed something," said his aunt, "which is more
than anyone ever expected you would do, and the army is respectable,
for, as I have told you, my grandfather was killed at Waterloo."

"Yes," replied Arthur, "you have told me, my dear Aunt, very often. He
broke his neck by jumping off his horse when riding towards or from the
battlefield, did he not? and now I propose to follow his honoured
example, on the battlefield, if possible, or if not, in steeplechasing."

So the pair of them went to Sandhurst together, and together in due
course were gazetted to a certain regiment of Indian cavalry, the only
difference being that Godfrey passed out top and Arthur passed out
bottom,