"Because you'll have to tussle and try through life, you know, comrade."
"Yes, sah!"
The firm white hand took the little brown one in a warm hold. "And I shan't bind you with any promises this time, G. W.," the Colonel said.
A warm color stole over G. W.'s dusky cheeks. He looked up and spoke unexpectedly to the Colonel. "Dere was two promises, Colonel. I kep' de promise to de Boy and his Mother, sah. I kep' de promise to take care ob you, sah."
The poor little body-guard, so long sick and torn with shame over his disobedience and tarnished honor, had thought the whole matter out to the comfort of his soul. He looked up fearlessly into his Colonel's eyes.
"So you did, G. W.," said the officer, humbly, but with a lighted face. "And God bless you, comrade!"
The whole matter was clear to them both forever.
A week later the two boys went with Colonel Austin to enter the famous school where little G. W., as a private citizen of the Republic he had served according to his strength, was to begin to hew out his fortunes, with the odds, as his Colonel had said, against him.
The head master greeted him cordially, and the other teachers followed the example. At the very outset the pupils were divided among themselves and withheld their verdict. The open comradeship of Colonel Austin's son was the thing that counted in the matter for the time being.