“Crabtree and Cuddle have no right to do you out of your dinners,” added another.
“Make them give you what you pay for,” added a third.
The cries increased until it looked as if the demonstration in the mess hall would be greater than that which had occurred in the classroom. Pluxton Cuddle called for order, but even as he spoke a hot potato went sailing through the air and hit him in the shirt front. Then a shower of bread went up into the air, falling all around both Cuddle and Crabtree.
“Boys! boys!” gasped Josiah Crabtree, and now he turned pale, wondering what would happen next.
“Better give ’em something to eat, sah!” suggested the head waiter, a colored man. “Some of them hungry chaps look wicked, sah!”
“They have all been fed too much, that is the reason,” said Pluxton Cuddle. “I don’t mean to-day, I mean in general. However, perhaps it will be as well, just now, to let them have a—er—a light repast,” he went on stammeringly, for another hot potato had hit him on the shoulder.
“Boys!” called out Jack. “Stop throwing things. Mr. Crabtree wants to say something.” For he saw that the teacher wanted to speak to the assemblage.
“I—er—I wish to state,” began Josiah Crabtree, when the cadets settled down at Jack’s command, “that I—er—I did not intend to make you do without your dinner. I was—er—going to—er—let you come to the mess hall—er—after the other pupils had finished. But as it is——” he gazed around somewhat helplessly, “I—er—I think you can stay. The waiters will bring in the dinner.” And he sat down and mopped his perspiring forehead with his handkerchief.
“Gosh! I’ll bet it was hard for him to come down!” whispered Dale to Pepper.
“He’s getting afraid of the crowd,” returned The Imp. “He was afraid we’d pass him the stuff on the table without waiting for plates!” And Pepper grinned suggestively.