“Believe me, sir, I am honored!”
“My counsel, sir, is to cease thinking of yourself. Give your life a better purpose and a higher aim. You will have more credit now, more fame hereafter, if you will lay aside that egotism which dominates you, and give your career a motive beyond and above a mere desire to advance yourself.”
The big general, from the commanding heights of those advantageous extra six inches, looks down upon young Aaron. In that looking down there is nothing of the paternal. Rather it is as though a pedagogue deals with some self-willed pupil.
Of all the big general’s irritating attitudes, young Aaron finds this pose of unruffled supremacy the one hardest to bear. He holds himself in hand, however, deeming it a time, now the ice is broken, to go to the bottom of his prospects, and learn what hope there is of honors which can come only through the other’s word.
“Sir,” observes young Aaron, “will you be so good as to make yourself clear. What you say is interesting; I would not miss its slightest meaning.”
“It should be confessed,” returns the big general, somewhat to one side, “that I am of a hot and angry temper. My one fear, having authority, is that in the heat of personal resentments I may do injustice. If it were not for such fear, you would have gone south with General Gates, for whom you plotted all you knew to bring about my downfall.”
Young Aaron is seized of a chilling surprise. This is his first news that Washington is aware of his part in that plot. However, he schools his features to a statuelike immobility, and evinces neither amazement nor dismay. The big general goes on:
“No, sir; your conduct as a soldier has been good. So I leave you with your regiment, retain you with me, because I can see no public reasons, but only private ones, for sending you away. I go over these things, sir, to convince you that I have not permitted personal bias to control my attitude toward you. Besides, I hope to teach you a present sincerity in what I say.”
“Why, sir,” interjects young Aaron, careful to maintain a coolness and self-possession equal with the big general’s; “you give yourself unnecessary trouble. I cannot think your sincerity important, since I shall not permit the question of it to in any way add to or subtract from your words. I listen gladly and with gratitude. None the less, I shall accept or reject your counsel on its abstract merits, unaffected by its honorable source.”
The insufferable impertinence of young Aaron’s manner would have got him drummed out of some services, shot in others. The big general only bites his lip.