“Didn’t Varrell and Dickinson do the same?” asked Melvin, amused for the instant at the peculiar point of view of this non-athletic sport, who was always prating athletic nonsense, and swaggering as an expert.
“Ye-es,” answered Marks, unwillingly; “but Dickinson balked in the six hundred. It’s all due to his folly about the track ends; they wouldn’t stop him if he wasn’t afraid.”
A look of indignation swept over Melvin’s face. His lips parted to let out a savage retort, but he suddenly checked himself, gave a sniff of amused contempt, and replied good humoredly, “Really, Marks, you ought to write a book on athletics to leave to the school when we graduate.”
And Marks went off, furious and voluble, to inform his listeners that Melvin’s athletic successes had entirely turned his head; the fellow was really nothing but a big chump after all.
CHAPTER XIV
UNDER TWO FLAGS
For an hour or two after the meeting was over the elated middlers made a good deal of noise with their yells and their cheering, to which no one objected except those who happened to want to study at this ill-chosen hour. Later a few leading spirits cast about for some more striking mode of proving their importance than the threadbare and laborious fashion of cheers. The class flag which the seniors, following a precedent, had displayed on the Academy tower very early on Washington’s birthday, had been seasonably and ignominiously removed by the conscientious boy who rang the Academy bell. The middlers concluded that the cleverest thing for them would be to hang their own class flag aloft on the day when the school was to break up for the spring recess,—the following Wednesday.
Boys are proverbially unskilled in keeping secrets. By Monday night the seniors knew of the middlers’ plan. By Tuesday night the middlers knew of the seniors’ plan, which was, of course, to anticipate their friends on Wednesday morning, and have the senior, not the middler banner, wave a farewell to the scattering school. The middlers then advanced the execution of their scheme several hours. Early Tuesday night instead of Wednesday morning, a daring middler, Tompkins by name, scaled the Academy roof, mounted the belfry, and fixed to the weather-vane the banner of his class. Then sliding down the lightning-rod again to the main roof of the building, he settled himself there for his hour’s vigil.
Report of this forward movement of the enemy was brought to Sands’s room early in the evening. He hastily summoned advisers; Melvin, Varrell, Curtis, Dickinson, Waters, Todd, and others whose names are not known to this story, gathered to his call.
Waters proposed to storm the watch immediately, change flags, and set a new guard. Melvin and Varrell objected vigorously to the plan as dangerous and foolhardy, and apparently were supported by the others. Dickinson then suggested that the wisest course would be to leave to the middlers their flag, their night-watch, and their victory.