"Greg, it has been hard enough on us to get used to the new ways at West Point. But we'll never mind anything during the rest of our plebedom. No matter what happens to us we'll just remember how much more is bound to happen to pompous old Dodge."
Dick returned to his table, picking up his text-book on French. Greg honestly tried to study, but every other minute he simply had to stop to laugh at the thought of Bert and his pompous ways.
Finally, when he could restrain himself no longer, Greg broke forth:
"Dick, old ramrod, no matter what happens to me, now I can stand it by thinking of Bert Dodge being here!"
"I hope he doesn't start his old tactics of making trouble," muttered
Cadet Prescott.
"If he does, he'll have most of the trouble in his own possession," grinned Greg. "West Point is a place where manliness has the only real show."
"Yes, but a sneak can make an awful lot of trouble," sighed Dick. "Not that I mean to call Dodge a sneak, though. I am in hopes that he'll prove anything but that. From the minute that a fellow enters the Military Academy he starts in life all over again. So, remember, Greg, we won't be prepared to hate or distrust Dodge, and we'll lose a hand before we'll utter a word against him, based on anything that happened in the past."
"That's the square deal, and the West Point ideal," nodded Greg, who was rapidly forgetting the letter, the fragments of which were now in his waste basket. "Who knows but that, in this new atmosphere, Bert Dodge may turn out to be a man? West Point will do that very thing for him, if any new surroundings can."
As the battalion marched to supper that night Bert Dodge felt in his heart that hazing must already have started for him; for, being the only candidate left at West Point, and having no uniform as yet, Dodge was compelled to march, in his rather gay "cit." attire, at the extreme end of the battalion line.
Bert did not march quite alone, however.