“What is true with limitations is frequently assumed to be true absolutely. Thus—‘Deleterious drugs are always to be rejected; opium is a deleterious drug; therefore opium is always to be rejected.’ What’s wrong with that reasoning, Clarence?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” answered the latter, snatching the book from his friend’s hand and slamming it down upon the table. “Let it go until this evening, and then we will study it together. Let’s have a game of checkers now, and see if you can beat me as badly as you did the last time we played.”
“I don’t much like those fellows, Don,” said Bert, when Fisher and Duncan had taken their leave.
“I can’t see what there is wrong about them,” replied Don, who knew in a moment what his brother meant. “I am sure they acted very honorably in coming here to make things right with us.”
“I have nothing to say against that,” Bert hastened to answer. “But I don’t like to hear them talk so glibly about disobeying the rules.”
“I don’t know that that is any business of yours or mine either,” said Don, rather impatiently. “If they are willing to take the risk, and abide the consequences if they are detected, that is their own affair. You needn’t do it.”
“I!” exclaimed Bert, in great amazement. “You maybe sure that I have no intention of doing anything of the kind, and I hope you haven’t, either.”
“You need not waste any valuable time in worrying about me. I am able to look out for myself. But I’ll tell you what’s a fact, Bert: I don’t think as much of this military business as I did a few weeks ago. If I were only back home with my pony, dogs and guns, I tell you I would stay there. I feel more like going out in the woods and knocking over a wild turkey than I do like sitting here in this gloomy room preparing for to-morrow’s recitations.”
Don opened one of the books that lay upon the table, but the page on which he fastened his eyes might have been blank for all he saw there. His mind was not upon the work that demanded his attention. He was thinking over his recent interview with Fisher and Duncan.
“I wonder if they pass their evenings at Cony Ryan’s when they run the guards?” said Don to himself. “I wonder, too, if Cony’s hotel, or whatever he calls it, was in existence when my father attended this school, and if he went there to eat pancakes. If he did, I don’t see how he can find any fault with me if I go there. Tom and Clarence don’t seem to be such a bad lot, and it is nothing more than fair that I should meet their advances half way.”