The evening was falling very fair over plain and hill when we got to the upper level. Mr. Thorold proposed that I should go and see the camp, which I liked very much to do. So he took me all through it, and showed and explained all sorts of things about the tents and the manner of life they lived in them. He said he should like it very much, if he only had more room; but three or four in one little tent nine feet by nine, gave hardly, as he said, "a chance to a fellow." The tents and the camp alleys were full of cadets, loitering about, or talking, or busy with their accoutrements; here and there I saw an officer. Captain Percival bowed, Captain Lascelles spoke. I looked for Preston, but I could see him nowhere. Then Mr. Thorold brought me
into his own tent, introduced one or two cadets who were loitering there, and who immediately took themselves away; and made me sit down on what he called a "locker." The tent curtains were rolled tight up, as far as they would go, and so were the curtains of every other tent; most beautiful order prevailed everywhere and over every trifling detail.
"Well," said Mr. Thorold, sitting down opposite me on a candle-box—"how do you think you would like camp life?"
"The tents are too close together," I said.
He laughed, with a good deal of amusement.
"That will do!" he said. "You begin by knocking the camp to pieces."
"But it is beautiful," I went on.
"And not comfortable. Well, it is pretty comfortable," he said.
"How do you do when it storms very hard—at night?"
"Sleep."