Magnus was so deep in his dreams down there one day that a step close by made him start. This was no gauze-winged vision, however, but a poor, homesick pleb. In the gray, baggy suit of first initiation, with clouded brow and an air of general forlornness, he looked as little like flood tide as a fellow could do.
He glanced at the trim first classman down among the bushes, went a few steps on, turned, hesitated, and finally came up behind Magnus.
"Shall I disturb you, sir?" he said deprecatingly.
"No; come on. Rocks are Government property. You're Mr. Renwick, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir."
The boy sat himself down at the water's edge, and looked gloomily off. He was a slight fellow, just touching the regulation age; fair-skinned, soft-haired, with an unmistakable air of love and petting about him. "A mother's boy" all over. There were hearts aching for a sight of him somewhere, without a doubt.
Magnus eyed him a while from a first-class standpoint; then his look softened. What wretched, desperate hours he himself had spent in that very dress among those very rocks. And then of a sudden Cadet Kindred fell to wondering what the Lord would say to this poor heart, were he there himself in bodily presence? And the reply was instant:
"Be pitiful, be courteous."
"You were in the pleb formation on the Fourth?" he said abruptly.
"Yes, sir."