altogether beyond my calculations. I had not sup-
posed he would move in the matter while I was away;
and so I had not mapped out a scheme for determining
the merits of officers; I had only remarked that it
would be wise to submit every candidate to a sharp
and searching examination; and privately I meant to
put together a list of military qualifications that no-
body could answer to but my West Pointers. That
ought to have been attended to before I left; for the
king was so taken with the idea of a standing army
that he couldn't wait but must get about it at once,
and get up as good a scheme of examination as he
could invent out of his own head.

I was impatient to see what this was; and to show,