"Now let us have done with fooling for a little while, Noll. I remember something that Prescott was telling me once."
"Lieutenant Prescott," Terry interrupted quietly.
"Guess again, chum. You forget that we have been lieutenants since—well, since four o'clock this afternoon. So I am within my rights in simply calling him by his last name."
"True," admitted Noll. "I've been in the ranks so long that, somehow, it seems hard to realize that I am suddenly an officer, and the equal of any other second lieutenant in the Army."
"Prescott was telling me," went on Hal, "of a great friend he and Holmes had at West Point. He was a young Virginian, Anstey by name. Now Prescott and Holmes both feel as though they'd gladly give their left hands for a chance to grip Anstey's paw; yet since leaving West Point Prescott and Holmes have not laid eyes on Anstey—which brings me up to the question: How are we going to feel if you and I are constantly serving on different sides of the earth from each other?"
Lieutenant Noll Terry looked almost startled.
"By Jove, I hadn't thought of that," he muttered.
"I've been thinking of it," Hal rejoined. "Now, Noll, what is the matter with you and me drawing up a request, both signing it, asking that, if in accordance with military interests, we be assigned to the same regiment and battalion?"
"To whom should such a request go?"
"To the adjutant general of the Army, I imagine, since neither of us as yet belongs to any regiment or department."