"Well, you want to step out about it," was the curt reply. "There's been too much shilly-shally about this matter already."
"That's no fault of mine!" answered Pops, firing up at the instant. "Connell, you'll stand by me, won't you? Mr. Jennings, you can have all the satisfaction you want; and, what's more, just you say that if I can find out who stole my gun last night there'll be no time fooled away asking for any apologies."
"Bully!" gasped Benny, with eager delight; and Foster smote his thigh with ecstasy.
"All right, my young fighting-cock!" sneered Jennings. "We'll accommodate you—and begin to-night during supper. See that you and Mr. Connell here are ready."
"Oh, one moment, Mr. Jennings," interposed the First Class neighbor. "Mr. Graham is possibly ignorant of the fact that as a challenged party it's his right and not yours to name the time. Fair play, if you please, now; fair play."
"Oh, he'll get fair play enough," said Jennings, impatiently.
But here the clamor of fife and drum, thundering away at "The Roast Beef of Old England," put an end to the preliminaries. All through dinner nothing was talked of at the table of Company B but the coming mill between Woods and Graham, the first of the inevitable series of fisticuffs between yearling and plebe. Of course, too, by this time Graham's virtual challenge to his assailants to come out and own up was being passed from lip to lip. Of course, it was always the understood thing that if a plebe objected to his treatment and demanded satisfaction, the offender must fight. Only, by the unwritten code of the corps, there were certain things which it was held a plebe should take as a matter of course, and not look upon in the light of personal affront; and being hazed on post was one of them. Mr. Otis, their next-door neighbor, took the trouble to explain this to Pops later in the afternoon, and Geordie listened respectfully, but without being moved. He had been taught all his life just the reverse, he said. A sentry was a sentry all the world over, and whether Life-guardsman in London, soldier in the Sioux country, or plebe at the Point, it didn't make a particle of difference to him. "I may be wrong, Mr. Otis, but it's all the fault of my bringing up."
"Confound the pig-headed young sawney!" said Otis, afterwards. "He's as obstinate as a mule, and, what makes it worse, he's perfectly right; only the yearlings can't see it, and he'll have no end of fight and trouble, especially if he licks Woods to-night."
Now here was a question. Woods had all the advantage of the year's splendid gymnastic training, under as fine a master as the nation could provide. Every muscle and sinew was evenly and carefully developed. He was lithe, quick, active, skilled with foil, bayonet, and broadsword, and fairly well taught with the gloves. He had borne himself well in the two or three "scrimmages" of his plebe year, and the Third Class were wellnigh unanimous in their prediction that he'd "make a chopping-block of that plebe." Geordie was bulkier than his foeman, a splendid specimen of lusty health, strength, and endurance; but he lacked as yet the special training and systematic development of the yearling.
"Take 'em a year from now," said Mr. Ross, "and there's no question but that Woods'll be outclassed; but to-day it makes one think of Fitz-James and Roderick Dhu."