When once I had set THEM up I should have to stick to them--I couldn't make my young man seven feet high in one place and five feet nine in another.

I inclined on the whole to the latter measurement, though the Major more than once reminded me that he looked about as young as any one.

It was indeed quite possible to arrange him, for the figure, so that it would have been difficult to detect his age.

After the spontaneous Oronte had been with me a month, and after I had given him to understand several times over that his native exuberance would presently constitute an insurmountable barrier to our further intercourse, I waked to a sense of his heroic capacity.

He was only five feet seven, but the remaining inches were latent.