Now the Captain of Richard Doubledick’s company was a young gentleman not above five years his senior, whose eyes had an expression in them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a very remarkable way.  They were bright, handsome, dark eyes,—­what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather steady than severe,—­but they were the only eyes now left in his narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could not stand.  Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed.  He could not so much as salute Captain Taunton in the street like any other officer.  He was reproached and confused,—­troubled by the mere possibility of the captain’s looking at him.  In his worst moments, he would rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than encounter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes.

One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the Black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton’s quarters.  In the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain; but he was not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the officers’ quarters were; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture of the Black hole.

“Come in!” cried the Captain, when he had knocked with his knuckles at the door.  Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood in the light of the dark, bright eyes.

There was a silent pause.  Private Richard Doubledick had put the straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his windpipe and choking himself.

“Doubledick,” said the Captain, “do you know where you are going to?”

“To the Devil, sir?” faltered Doubledick.

“Yes,” returned the Captain.  “And very fast.”

Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole in his month, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence.

“Doubledick,” said the Captain, “since I entered his Majesty’s service, a boy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men of promise going that road; but I have never been so pained to see a man make the shameful journey as I have been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you.”

Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over the floor at which he looked; also to find the legs of the Captain’s breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water.

“I am only a common soldier, sir,” said he.  “It signifies very little what such a poor brute comes to.”