"Our cards to Mrs. Bentley, please."
"Front! Fifty-seven!" called the clerk to a bellboy.
"Thank you," acknowledged Prescott.
"Wheeling, the young men turned from the office, striding down the hotel veranda side by side. They turned in at the ladies' entrance, then, caps in hand, stood waiting in the corridor. It is a rule that a cadet must enter no part of the hotel except the parlor. He must see his friends either there, or on the veranda. There is a story told that a general officer's wife visited West Point, for the first time, to see her son, a new cadet at West Point. The plebe son called—-with permission—-sent up his card, and was summoned to his mother's room. He went. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. The clerk stood there, apologetic but firm.
"I am very sorry, madam, but the regulations provide that your son can visit you only in the parlor."
"But I am the wife of Major General Blank!" exclaimed the surprised lady.
"But, Mrs. Blank, your son is a cadet, and subject to the regulations on the subject. He must either go to the parlor at once, or leave the hotel instantly. If he refuses to do either I am forced to telephone to the tactical officer in charge."
The general's wife was therefore obliged to descend to the parlor with her plebe son.
No other room but the parlor! This prohibition extends even to the dining room. The cadet may not, under any circumstances, accept an invitation from a friend or relative to take a sociable meal with either.
"Tyrannous" and "needlessly oppressive," are terms frequently applied by outsiders to the rules that hedge in cadets, but there is a good reason behind every regulation.