with the gravity and even solemnity of his later years. Among his
fellow-students he was not distinguished by any special or exclusive
devotion to study. He was certainly no bookworm, and he was known
rather for his love of sport and boisterous high spirits than for
attention to his lessons or for a high place in his class. More than
once he was involved in affairs that, if excusable and natural on the
score of youth, trenched beyond the borders of discipline, and the
stories of life at the Academy that he recited for many years after he
left were not exactly in harmony with the popular idea of the ascetic
of Mount Carmel.

As the reader treasures up the boyish escapades of Nelson and Clive,
so will enduring interest be felt in those outbreaks of the boy
Gordon, which made him the terror of his superiors. They are recorded
on the unimpeachable evidence of his elder brother, and some of them
were even narrated by Gordon himself to his niece nearly thirty years
after they happened. Sir Henry is the writer.

"Charles Gordon with a brother (William Augustus) more unruly
than himself, finding the time hang heavily upon their hands
during the vacation, employed themselves in various ways. Their
father's house (at Woolwich) was opposite to that of the
Commandant of the Garrison, and was overrun with mice. These were
caught, the Commandant's door quietly opened, and the mice were
transferred to new quarters. In after life (that is in 1879, when
in the Soudan) Charles Gordon wrote to one of his nieces: 'I am
glad to hear the race of true Gordons is not extinct. Do you not
regret the Arsenal and its delights? You never, any of you, made
a proper use of the Arsenal workmen as we did. They used to
neglect their work for our orders, and turned out some splendid
squirts--articles that would wet you through in a minute. As for
the crossbows we had made, they were grand with screws. One
Sunday afternoon twenty-seven panes of glass were broken in the
large storehouses. They were found to have been perforated with a
small hole (ventilation), and Captain Soady nearly escaped a
premature death; a screw passed his head, and was as if it had
been screwed into the wall which it had entered. Servants were
kept at the door with continual bell-ringings. Your uncle Freddy
(a younger brother) was pushed into houses, the bell rung, and
th