{"product_id":"2940013296565","title":"In The Track Of The Troops","description":"CHAPTER ONE.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA TALE OF MODERN WAR.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eREVEALS THE EXPLOSIVE NATURE OF MY EARLY CAREER.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe remarkable--I might even say amazing--personal adventures which I am\u003cbr\u003eabout to relate occurred quite recently.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThey are so full of interest to myself and to my old mother, that I\u003cbr\u003ehasten to write them down while yet vivid and fresh in my memory, in the\u003cbr\u003ehope that they may prove interesting,--to say nothing of elevating and\u003cbr\u003einstructive--to the English-speaking portions of the human race\u003cbr\u003ethroughout the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dear old lady to whom I have just referred--my mother--is one of the\u003cbr\u003egentlest, meekest, tenderest beings of my acquaintance.  Her regard for\u003cbr\u003eme is almost idolatrous.  My feelings towards her are tinged with\u003cbr\u003eadoration.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFrom my earliest years I have been addicted to analysis.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSome of my younger readers may not perhaps know that by analysis is\u003cbr\u003emeant the reduction of compound things to their elements--the turning of\u003cbr\u003ethings, as it were, inside out and tearing them to pieces.  All the\u003cbr\u003ecomplex toys of infancy I was wont to reduce to their elements; I turned\u003cbr\u003ethem inside out to see what they were made of, and how they worked.  A\u003cbr\u003edoll, not my own, but my sister Bella's, which had moveable eyelids and\u003cbr\u003ea musical stomach, was treated by me in this manner, the result being\u003cbr\u003ethat I learned little, while my poor sister suffered much.  Everything\u003cbr\u003ein my father's house suffered more or less from this inquiring tendency\u003cbr\u003eof my mind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTime, however, while it did not abate my thirst for knowledge, developed\u003cbr\u003emy constructive powers.  I became a mechanician and an inventor.\u003cbr\u003ePerpetual motion was my first hobby.  Six times during the course of\u003cbr\u003eboyhood did I burst into my mother's presence with the astounding news\u003cbr\u003ethat I had \"discovered it at last!\"  The mild and trustful being\u003cbr\u003ebelieved me.  Six times also was I compelled to acknowledge to her that\u003cbr\u003eI had been mistaken, and again she believed me, more thoroughly,\u003cbr\u003eperhaps, than at first.  No one, I think, can form the least idea of the\u003cbr\u003edelight with which I pursued this mechanical will-o'-the-wisp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGrowing older, I took to chemistry, and here my love for research and\u003cbr\u003eanalysis found ample scope, while the sufferings of my father's\u003cbr\u003ehousehold were intensified.  I am not naturally cruel--far from it.\u003cbr\u003eThey little knew how much pain their sufferings caused me; how earnestly\u003cbr\u003eI endeavoured to lessen or neutralise the nuisances which the pursuit of\u003cbr\u003escience entailed.  But I could not consume my own smoke, or prevent\u003cbr\u003eexplosions, or convert bad and suffocating odours into sweet smells.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47180309233904,"sku":"2940013296565","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013296565_p0.jpg?v=1763579382","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013296565","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}