"I am not better than you think me," he said, laughing, and shaking his head. And the laugh was so full of merriment that it infected me. I saw he was very much amused; I thought he was a little interested, too. "You know," he went on, "my education has been unfavourable. I have fought for a smaller matter than that you judge insufficient."
"Did it do any good?" I asked.
He laughed again: picked up a stone and threw it into the midst of a thick tree to dislodge something—I did not see what; and finally looked round at me with the most genial amusement and good nature mixed. I knew he was interested now.
"I don't know how much good it did to anybody but myself," he said. "It comforted me—at the time. Afterwards I remember
thinking it was hardly worth while. But if a fellow should suffer an insult, as you say, and not take any notice of it, what do you suppose would become of him in the corps—or in the world either?"
"He would be a noble man, all the same," I said.
"But people like to be well thought of by their friends and society."
"I know that."
"He would be sent to Coventry unmitigatedly."
"I cannot help it, Mr. Thorold," I said. "If anybody does wrong because he is afraid of the consequences of doing right, he is another sort of a coward—that is all."