“You have done well, old chap,” said Billy. Manners, “and I want to see you do better yet the next time.”
“I am going to try to at any rate, Billy,” said Jack.
“Old Bull is getting very cranky these days,” Billy added. “He is getting to be more of a martinet than ever and would keep us drilling from morning till night if he had his way. I fancy he thinks this is another West Point.”
“Perhaps he remembers how you fooled him with the mad dog alarm,” laughed Jack.
“He did not know it at the time or I would have been put on guard duty all night. Anyhow, there will be trouble if he keeps up this everlasting drilling. I don’t believe the doctor cares for it but the doctor is a good old fellow and never says anything about what any of his instructors does. He is as mild mannered as an old woman.”
“How did you come out yourself in your examinations?” Jack asked.
“Pretty good, but I like fun too much to do any overtime in study. Maybe I would have done better but for that.”
“Perhaps you would but I would rather have you full of fun than going about grumbling and complaining against everybody as some of the boys here are in the habit of doing.”
“Yes, I know who you mean and they did not pass very high either. If they are not more studious for the rest of this term they will be told to go somewhere else at the end of it.”
The work began again in a short time and Jack devoted himself as sedulously to his work as before, while, at the same time, he indulged in all the sports that boys like best and excelled in them, making more friends every day and making those he had already made more and more fond of him.