“Well, I suppose I was—a little,” said Dick, turning more red in the face.
“A little? Awfully, old fellow. Drop it. I wouldn’t have taken you through the men’s quarters like that for your own sake. Believe me, my lad, when I tell you that I’m going to take you through our troop of picked men—men we’re all proud of. They’re keen, clever fellows, who can read one like a book. You’ll have to help lead them some day, and you’ve got to win their respect by your manliness and pluck. Then they’ll follow you anywhere.”
“Manliness!” cried Dick reproachfully; “and you ridicule me for trying to be so.”
“For shamming it, my lad. A boy can be naturally manly without acting.”
“All right; I’ll try—to be a boy,” said Dick, rather glumly.
“There, now, you’re facing about in the wrong direction, my lad. Don’t try—don’t act. Be a natural British lad. Look honestly, enviously if you like, at the men. You are a boy yet, nothing but a boy—one of the youngest officers we’ve had; and if you’re frank and natural with it, and the men see that you’ve got the pluck to learn our ways, with plenty of go, they’ll make it ten times as easy for you as it would be, and make a regular pet of you.”
“But I don’t want to be the men’s pet,” said Dick sharply.
“Of course not. I only mean they’ll be proud of you, and like you for being young. They’ll put will into everything they do when you give your orders; and when,” said Wyatt, with a grim laugh—“when you’re beginning, and hot and excited, and give the wrong orders and would wheel the troop in the wrong direction, they’ll go right.”
“Thank you, Mr Wyatt,” said Dick quietly.
The lieutenant looked at him sharply.