I did not believe I possessed them, and could not bear the idea of failing.

There had been four boys from our village, or its immediate neighborhood, who had been graduated from West Point, and never a failure of any one appointed from Georgetown, except in the case of the one whose place I was to take.

He was the son of Dr.
Bailey, our nearest and most intimate neighbor.

Young Bailey had been appointed in 1837.

Finding before the January examination following, that he could not pass, he resigned and went to a private school, and remained there until the following year, when he was reappointed.
Before the next examination he was dismissed.