"What's all that nonsense Ferrers gives us about the old days when he was such a rookie from civil life?" inquired Lieutenant Sears.
"It's all true enough," Hal answered. "Ferrers was a mighty good-hearted fellow——"
"He is now," interposed Sears.
"But he was really the laughing-stock of all the enlisted men, and the despair of all the other officers at Fort Clowdry," continued Hal. "Nothing has pleased me so much, in a long time, as to see him such a dead-in-earnest, dyed-in-the-wool officer as he is now."
"Ferrers is one of the most capable youngsters in the service," Sears declared warmly. "Really, you know, it seems incredible that he could ever have been any other kind of officer."
"If a man like Algy Ferrers can come back, and be what he is to-day," Noll declared, "then there's hope for a pair of raw youngsters like Overton and myself."
"Oh, you two will have no trouble; you've been enlisted men," replied Johnson. "Men who come up from the ranks, as you two did, have had all the possible nonsense knocked out of them before they got to their first examinations. But here's Captain Goodale's house."
"And Captain Foster's is the next beyond," stated Lieutenant Sears.