"But eating out of the same dish!" said Violet.
"If you had been a year at West Point, you'd eat ice cream out of anything," said Magnus, "and almost with anybody. I am generally careful to keep far away on my own side, and to grow more modest as the partition wall grows thin."
"But you had no money," said Mrs. Kindred. "I cannot see where you got ice cream."
"Summer girl stands treat. When you see a group of fainting cadets gathered round Delmonico's, you may take your affidavit there's a summer girl inside. Why, the amount of boodle that fair creature smuggles into camp and throws around generally would set a country store up in business."
"Boodle?" queried Mr. Erskine.
"Contraband sweets of life, sir."
"But Magnus, you said 'smuggled,'" said his mother.
"Had to be smuggled, mammy, or it could never get in. Tacs would confiscate and eat it up. And it might disagree with some of 'em. Better let any number of cadets suffer from indigestion and go to the hospital than have Towser off duty for a single day."
"My dear," said Mrs. Kindred, trying hard to keep a grave face, "I do not like to have you breaking rules."
"Don't like it myself," said Magnus virtuously. "They should not make 'em so fragile."