For frivolity and
jokes and spotted tights were an offense, when they intruded themselves
upon a spirit that was exalted into the vague august realm of the
romantic. No, he would be a soldier, and return after long years, all
war-worn and illustrious. No-better still, he would join the Indians,
and hunt buffaloes and go on the warpath in the mountain ranges and the
trackless
great plains of the Far West, and away in the future come
back a great chief, bristling
with feathers, hideous with paint, and
prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy summer morning, with a
bloodcurdling war-whoop