"Up with you, sir," admonished Dick. "You are still so full of egotism that it sways you like the walking beam of a steamboat. Up with you, mister, and up you stay until there is no ballast of conceit left in you."
Crab-crab-crab! Mr. Briggs continued to move sidewise and backward over the tent flooring.
Mr. Ellis was growing frightfully red in the face. But Prescott, from the remembrance of his own plebe days, knew to a dot how long a healthy plebe could keep that inverted position without serious injury. So the class president, sitting as judge in the court of hazing, showed no mercy.
Some of the yearlings who stood outside peering in should have kept a weather eye open for the approach of trouble from tac. quarters. But, as the ordeals of both of the once frisky plebes became more severe, the interest of those outside increased.
Crab-crab-crab! continued Mr. Briggs. It seemed to him as though his belt-line weighed fully a ton, so hard was it to keep his abdomen off the floor, resting solely on his hands and feet.
Mr. Ellis must have felt that conceit and he could never again be friends, judging by the redness of his face and the straining of his muscles.
An approaching step outside should have been heard by some of
the yearlings looking in through the doorway, but it wasn't.
Then, all in an instant, the step quickened, and Lieutenant
Topham, O.C. for the day, made for the tent door!
CHAPTER XI
LIEUTENANT TOPHAM FEELS QUEER
Yearling Kelton barely turned his head, but he caught sight of the olive drab of the uniform of the Army officer within a few feet.