I shall see every country worth seeing. I shall taste
every pleasure worth having. When old, I shall become a hermit."
Said another slender youth, fair-haired: "I shall become President and
execute a _coup d'etat_ making myself an absolute monarch. I shall then
issue a decree requiring that all hermits be put to death."
The third said nothing. Was he restrained by some prescient sense of the
perishable nature of the material upon which he was expected to inscribe
the record of his hopes? However it may have been, he flicked his shoe
with a hazel switch and kept his own counsel. For twenty years he has been
the Sole Survivor of the group.
* * * * *
The scene changes. Six men are on horseback on a hill--a general and his
staff. Below, in the gray fog of a winter morning, an army, which has left
its intrenchments, is moving upon those of the enemy--creeping silently
into position. In an hour the whole wide valley for miles to left and
right will be all aroar with musketry stricken to seeming silence now and
again by thunder claps of big guns. In the meantime the risen sun has
burned a way through the fog, splendoring a part of the beleaguered city.
"Look at that, General," says an aide; "it is like enchantment."
"Go and enchant Colonel Post," said the general, without taking his
field-glass from his eyes, "and tell him to pitch in as soon as he hears
Smith's guns."
All laughed. But to-day I laugh alone.
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