"Oh, I go to a gymnasium!" interrupted May, "and I know one mustn't mistake one's stomach for one's chest, for they are not the same, whatever some people may think."
This knowledge of one of the primary lessons in physical culture impressed the General very favorably.
"Good!" said he. "I shall make a soldier of you yet. I shall have you at West Point before you know it, my boy!"
"You'll have to get me there that way if you get me there at all!" said May, with a wry face, which the General did not see. "I'll never go there if I do know it," she added, under her breath.
"Shoulders square," resumed the General. "Arms at the side, elbows near the body—no, not——"
"Don't you want me to dig my elbows into my ribs?" asked May. "They stay better that way."
"No, there must be no stiffness or constraint in these positions," the General said.
"I don't see what else you can get in them," May said. "I feel as if there was a stick running right down my back, and I'm sure I shall never be able to move my feet again."
"Yet I think I understood you to say you go to the gymnasium," said the General.