The grinning yearlings lost no time in slipping quietly away from that locality, and taking positions at a distance, where they could watch what followed.
All alone in the street in front of his tent stood the blindfolded plebe, bellowing the words at the full capacity of his voice, and repeating them over and over.
In a very few seconds Lieutenant Gordan, the regular army officer at the academy, came marching briskly down the street in the dusk, his face so red that it almost seemed to glow like a light. Stopping short in front of the lone plebe, he called:
"Sir!"
Ephraim kept on with
"An' there he saw the boys an' gals
Ez thick ez hasty poodin'."
"Sir!" came sharply from the lieutenant.
Ephraim began the stanza over again, roaring it louder than before, if possible:
"Yankee Dewdle came to taown
'Long with Cap'n Goodwin——"
"Sir!" cried Lieutenant Gordan.