r the floor
at which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain's
breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.

"I am only a common soldier, sir," said he. "It signifies very little
what such a poor brute comes to."

"You are a man," returned the Captain, with grave indignation, "of
education and superior advantages; and if you say that, meaning what you
say, you have sunk lower than I had believed. How low that must be, I
leave you to consider, knowing what I know of your disgrace, and seeing
what I see."

"I hope to get shot soon, sir," said Private Richard Doubledick; "and
then the regiment and the world together will be rid of me."

The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, looking up
to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an influence over
him. He put his hand before his own eyes, and the breast of his disgrace-
jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder.

"I would rather," said the young Captain, "see this in you, Doubledick,
than I would see five thousand guineas counted out upon this table for a
gift to my good mother. Have you a mother?"

"I am thankful to say she is dead, sir."

"If your praises," returned the Captain, "were sounded from mouth to
mouth through the whole regiment, through the whole army, through the
whole country, you would wish she had lived to say, with pride and joy,
'He is my son!'"

"Spare me, sir," said Doubledick. "She would never have heard any good
of me. She would never have had any pride and joy in owning herself my
mother. Love and compassion she might have had, and would have always
had, I know but not--Spare me, sir! I am a broken wretch, quite at your
mercy!" And he turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his
imploring hand.

"My friend--" began the Captain.

"God bless you, sir!" sobbed Private Richard Doubledick.

"You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged a little
longer, and you know what must happen. _I_ know even better than you can
imagine, that, after that has happened, you are lost. No man who could
shed those tears could bear those marks."

"I fully believe it, sir," in a low, shivering voice said Private Richard
Doubledick.

"But a man in any station can do his duty," said the young Captain, "and,
in doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his case should be so very
unfortunate and so very rare that he can earn no other man's. A common
soldier, poo