Dissecting struck me as a rather nasty business for a gentleman, and on
this account I did just as little as was absolutely essential. In fact,
if a man took his tickets and paid the dissection fees, nobody troubled
himself as to whether or not he did any more than this. A like evil
existed at the graduation: whether you squeezed through or passed with
credit was a thing which was not made public, so that I had absolutely
nothing to stimulate my ambition. I am told that it is all very
different to-day.

The astonishment with which I learned of my success was shared by the
numerous Southern gentlemen who darkened the floors and perfumed with
tobacco the rooms of our boarding-house. In my companions, during
the time of my studies so called, as in other matters of life, I was
somewhat unfortunate. All of them were Southern gentlemen, with
more money than I had. Many of them carried great sticks, usually
sword-canes, and some bowie-knives or pistols; also, they delighted in
swallow-tailed coats, long hair, broad-brimmed felt hats, and very tight
boots. I often think of these gentlemen with affectionate interest, and
wonder how many are lying under the wheat-fields of Virginia. One could
see them any day sauntering along with their arms over their companions'
shoulders, splendidly indifferent to the ways of the people about them.
They hated the "Nawth" and cursed the Yankees, and honestly believed
that the leanest of them was a match for any half a dozen of the
bulkiest of Northerners. I must also do them the justice to say that
they were quite as ready to fight as to brag, which, by the way, is no
meager statement. With these gentry--for whom I retain a respect which
filled me with regret at the recent course of events--I spent a good
deal of my large leisure. The more studious of both sections called us
a hard crowd. What we did, or how we did it, little concerns me here,
except that, owing to my esteem for chivalric blood and breeding, I was