son that her choice finally fell. And I
am sure that this was due to the expensive appearance, the coat of arms
and Latin motto of the catalogue's cover.

What ever it was, her choice was made. She talked a good deal of
splendid uniforms, of flags unfurled to the sunset--and fired me with a
lust for the new chapter in my life.

V

THE MILITARY ACADEMY

My introduction to military school was hardly auspicious. I was now
sixteen years old--nearly seventeen. I did not look that old, however;
the commandant of the school, in examining me, took me for much less and
assigned me to a room with a boy of twelve.

At seventeen, our age is a most important item. We think so, anyhow. And
this incident dampened my spirits most disproportionately. Especially
when I discovered that this roommate was to be the only other Jew in the
school. It seemed to me a very pointed and personal insult.

He was a meek little boy, though--meeker even than I. And all through
that first night he wept aloud, smothering his tears upon his pillow and
crying for his mama--and for _kartoffel salat_. It was a Friday night, I
remember, and it must have been a Sabbath custom in his house to have
potato salad for supper. At any rate he kept me awake long into the
night.

And once, taking savage pity on him, I got up and went over to him in my
bare feet and nightgown, and told him brusquely how satisfied he ought
to be to have a mother at all; that both my father and mother were dead,
and I should never see them again, no matter how homesick I grew or how
long I waited for their coming. This silenced him on that score, but he
went on whimpering for the _kartoffel salat_.

The next day I screwed up my courage to complain to the commandant. He
was a very tall, majestic figure of a soldier who had fought through the
Spanish and Boer wars and now, in times of peace, was reduced to
teaching the manual of arms and simple drill formations to young sons of
the rich. He was the most pompous, mean and utterly selfish man I ever
met. One could see it on his handsome face.

He heard my complaint through. Then, because, being an ignorant "plebe,"
I had forgotten to salute him, he made me perform that act and retell
the whole story word for word. But he could not change my room until I
had agreed to take a cot in the general dormitory--this being reserved
for students who paid less tuition.

"You may write your aunt," he said stiffly, twirling his long mu