I was floor committee, but
how I could do such a thing passes my understanding, except on the
principle laid down by Mr. Dooley that when a man is in love he
is looking for fight all around. I must have been, for they had to
hold me back by main strength from running away to the army that was
fighting a losing fight with two Great Powers that winter. Though
I was far under age, I was a big boy, and might have passed; but
the hasty retreat of our brave little band before overwhelming
odds settled it. With the echoes of the scandal caused by the ball
episode still ringing, I went off to Copenhagen to serve out my
apprenticeship there with a great builder whose name I saw among
the dead in the paper only the other day. He was ever a good friend
to me.
[Illustration: My Childhood's Home]
The third day after I reached the capital, which happened to be
my birthday, I had appointed a meeting with my student brother at
the art exhibition in the palace of Charlottenborg. I found two
stairways running up from the main entrance, and was debating in
my mind which to take, when a handsome gentleman in a blue overcoat
asked, with a slight foreign accent, if he could help me.
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