"As he walks along the Boulevard,
With an independent air."
he may be able to appreciate the afore-mentioned sensation.
There was no boulevard at West Point, but the area in barracks served the purpose, and Mark could not help noticing that as he went the yearlings were gazing enviously at him, and the plebes with undisguised admiration. He hurried upstairs to avoid that, and found that he had leaped, as the phrase has it, from the frying pan to the fire. For there were the other six of the "Seven Devils" ready to welcome him with a rush.
"Wow!" cried Texas. "Back again! Whoop!"
[Pg 240]"Bless my soul, but I'm glad!" piped in the little round bubbly voice of "Indian." "Bless my soul!"
"Sit down. Sit down," cried "Parson" Stanard, reverently offering his beloved volume of "Dana's Geology" for a cushion.
"Sit down and let us look at you."
"Yes, b'gee!" chimed in Alan Dewey. "Yes, b'gee, let's look at you. Reminds me of a story I once heard, b'gee—pshaw, what's the use of trying to tell a good story with everybody trying to shout at once."
The excitement subsided after some five minutes more, and Mark was glad of it. With the true modesty natural to all high minds he felt that he would a great deal rather rescue a girl than be praised and made generally uncomfortable for it. So he shut his followers up as quickly as he could, which was not very quickly, for they had lots to say.
"How is the girl?" inquired Dewey, perceiving at last that Mark really meant what he said, and so, hastening to turn the conversation.
"She's doing very well now," said Mark.
"Always your luck!" growled Texas. "She's beautiful, and her father's a judge and got lots of money. Bet[Pg 241] he runs off and marries her in a week. Oh, say, Mark, but you're lucky! You just ought to hear the plebes talk about you. I can't tell you how proud I am, man! Why——"
"Right back at it again!" interrupted Mark, laughing. "Right back again! Didn't I tell you to drop it? I know what I'll do——"
Here Mark arose from his seat.
"I hereby declare this a business meeting of the Seven Devils, and as chairman I call the meeting to order."
"What for?" cried the crowd.
"To consider plans for hazing," answered Mark. "I——"
"Wow!" roared Texas, wildly excited in an instant. "Goin' to haze somebody? Whoop!"
And Mark laughed silently to himself.
"I knew I'd make you drop that rescue business," he said. "And Mr. Powers, you will have the goodness to come to order and not to address the meeting until you are granted the floor. It is my purpose, if you will allow me to say a few words to the society—ahem!"
Mark said this with stern and pompous dignity and[Pg 242] Texas subsided so suddenly that the rest could scarcely keep from laughing.
"But, seriously now, fellows," he said, after a moment's silence. "Let's leave all the past behind and consider what's before us. I really have something to say."
Having been thus enjoined, the meeting did come to order. The members settled themselves comfortably about the room as if expecting a long oration, and Mark continued, after a moment's thought.
"We really ought to make up our mind beforehand as to just exactly what we're going to do. I suppose you all know what's going to happen to-day."
"No!" cried the impulsive Texas. "I don't. What is it, anyhow?"
"We're to move to camp this afternoon," responded Mark.
"I know; but what's that got to do with it?"
"Lots. Several of the cadets have told me that there's always more hazing done on that one day than on all the rest put together. You see, we leave barracks and go up to live with the whole corps at the summer camp. And that night the yearlings always raise Cain with the plebes."
[Pg 243]"Bully, b'gee!" chimed in Dewey, no less pleased with the prospect.
"So to-night is the decisive night," continued Mark. "And I leave it for the majority to decide just what we'll do about it. What do you say?"
Mark relapsed into silence, and there was a moment's pause, ended by the grave and classic Parson slowly rising to his feet. The Parson first laid his inevitable "Dana" upon the floor, then glanced about him with a pompous air and folded his long, bony arms. "Ahem!" he said, and then began:
"Gentlemen! I rise—ahem!—to put the case to you as I see it; I rise to emulate the example of the immortal Patrick Henry—to declare for liberty or death! Yea, by Zeus, or death!"
"Bully, b'gee!" chimed in Dewey, slapping his knee in approval and winking merrily at the crowd from behind the Parson's back.
"Gentlemen!" continued the Parson. "Once before we met in this same room and we did then make known our declaration of independence to the world. But there is one thing we have not yet done, and that we must do! Yea, by Zeus! I am a Bostonian—I may have told you[Pg 244] that before—and I am proud of the deeds of my forefathers. They fought at Bunker Hill; and, gentlemen, we have that yet to do."
"Betcher life, b'gee!" cried Dewey, as the Parson gravely took his seat. Then the former arose and continued the discussion. "Not much of a hand for making a speech," he said, "as the deaf-mute remarked when he lost three fingers; but I've got something to say, and, b'gee, I'm going to say it. To-night is the critical night, and if we are meek and mild now, we'll be it for the whole summer. And I say we don't, b'gee, and that's all!"
With which brief, but pointed and characteristic summary of the situation, Alan sat down and Texas clapped his heels together and gave vent to a "Wow!" of approval.
"Anybody else got anything to say?" inquired Mark.
"Yes, bah Jove! I have, don't ye know."
This came from Mr. Chauncey Van Rensallear Mount-Bonsall. Chauncey wore a high collar and a London accent; he was by this time playfully known as "the man with a tutor and a hyphen," both of which luxuries it had[Pg 245] been found he possessed. But Chauncey was no fool for all his mannerisms.
"Aw—yes," said he, "I have something to say, ye know. Those deuced yearlings will haze us more than any other plebes in the place. Beastly word, that, by the way. I hate to be called a plebe, ye know. There is blue blood in our family, bah Jove, and I'll guarantee there isn't one yearling in the place can show better. Why, my grandfather——"
"I call the gentleman to order," laughed Mark. "Hazing's the business on hand. Hazing, and not hancestors."
"I know," expostulated Chauncey, "but I hate to be called a plebe, ye know. As I was going to say, however, they'll haze us most. Mark has—aw—fooled them a dozen times, bah Jove! Texas chastised four of them. Parson, I'm told, chased half a dozen once. My friend Indian here got so deuced mad the other day that he nearly killed one, don't ye know. Dewey's worse, and as for me and my friend Sleepy here—aw—bah Jove!—--"
"You did better than all of us!" put in Mark.
Chauncey paused a moment to make a remark about "those deuced drills, ye know, which kept a fellah from[Pg 246] ever having a clean collah, bah Jove!" And then he continued.
"I just wanted to say, ye know, that we were selected for the hazing to-night, and that we might as well do something desperate at once, bah Jove! that's what I think, and so does my friend Sleepy. Don't you, Sleepy?"
"I ain't a-thinkin' abaout it 't all," came a voice from the bed where Methusalem Zebediah Chilvers, the farmer, lay stretched out.
"Sleepy's too tired," laughed Mark. "It seems to be the unanimous opinion of the crowd," he continued, after a moment's pause, "that we might just as well be bold. In other words, that we have no hazing."
"B'gee!" cried Dewey, springing to his feet, excitedly. "B'gee, I didn't say that! No, sir!"
"What did you say, then?" inquired Mark.
"I said that we shouldn't let them haze us, b'gee, and I meant it, too. I never said no hazing! Bet cher life, b'gee! I was just this moment going to make the motion that we carry the war into the enemy's country, that we upset West Point traditions for once and forever, and with a bang, too. In other words"—here the excitable youngster paused, so that his momentous idea might have[Pg 247] due weight—"in other words, b'gee, that we haze the yearlings!"
There was an awed silence for a few moments to give that terrifically original proposition a chance to settle in the minds of the amazed "devils."
Texas was the first to act and he leaped across the room at a bound and seized "B'gee" by the hand.
"Wow!" he roared. "Whoop! Bully, b'gee!"
And in half a minute more the seven, including the timid Indian, had registered a solemn vow to do deeds of valor that would "make them ole cadets look crosseyed," as Texas put it.
They were going to haze the yearlings!