should he do?

"Bother the Institute!" he muttered to himself. "It's only bricks an'
mortar after all, and I don't know a soul there."

He was wrong on both of these points, as we shall see.

"What's the use of my going?" he murmured, after a reflective pause.

"You promised the ladies of the Portsmouth Institute that you'd go to
see it, and report progress," said that extraordinary Something inside
of him, which had a most uncomfortable way of starting up and whispering
when least expected to do so.

"And," added Something, "every gentleman should keep his word."

"True," replied Miles, almost angrily, though inaudibly; "but I'm _not_
a gentleman, I'm only a private!"

"Goose!" retorted that pertinacious Something; "is not every private a
gentleman who acts like one? And is not every gentleman a blackguard
who behaves as such?"

Miles was silenced. He gave in, and went off at once to visit the
Institute.

As he walked down the long straight street leading to the Grand Square,
which had been almost destroyed by the bombardment, he passed numerous
dirty drinking-shops, and wondered that English soldiers would
condescend to enter such disgusting places. He was but a young soldier,
and had yet to learn that, to men who have been fairly overcome by the
power of the fiend Strong Drink, no place is too disgusting, and no
action too mean, so that it but leads to the gratification of their
intolerable craving. It is said that in two streets only there were 500
of these disreputable drinking-shops.

All sorts and conditions of men passed him as he went along: Turks,
Greeks, Arabs, Negroes, Frenchmen, Italians, and Englishmen, the gay
colours of whose picturesque costumes lent additional brilliancy to the
sunny scene. The sight of the dark-skinned men and veiled women of the
Arab quarter did more, however, than anything else to convince our hero
that he had at last really reached the "East"--the land of the ancient
Pharaohs, the Pyramids, the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and of
modern contention!

Presently he came upon the piece of waste ground which had been chosen
as the site of the new Institute. It was covered with the ruins--
shattered cement, glass, tiles, and general wreckage--of the buildings
that had stood there before the bombardment, and on three sides it was
surrounded by heaps of stones, shattered walls, and rubbish, some acres
in extent. But the place had the great advantage of being close