“Having passed four years of my life in that academy I am not ignorant of that fact,” said the general, after a little pause, during which he recalled to mind how he had once had his face washed in a snow-drift by a couple of second-class boys whom he had presumed to address on terms of familiarity. “But I hope you will do all you can for Lester. Remember how lonely you felt when you first went there, and found yourselves surrounded by those who were utter strangers to you.”
“Oh, we will,” said Bert, while Don scowled savagely but said nothing. “If he will show us that he has come there with the determination to do the best he can, we’ll stand by him; won’t we, Don?”
Of course the latter said they would, but he gave the promise simply because his father desired it, and not because he had any friendly feeling for Lester Brigham.
The other disgusted boy was Egan, who, on this particular day, was pacing up and down the back veranda of his father’s house, shaking his fist at the surf that was rolling in upon the beach, and acting altogether like one whose reflections were by no means agreeable. What it was that had happened to annoy him, we will let him tell in his own way.
Christmas, with its festivities, was now a memory. New Year’s day came and went, and Don and Bert, each in his own way, began making preparations for their return to Bridgeport. The latter, who was determined that the close of another school year should find him with at least one bar on his shoulder, devoted his morning hours to his books, while Don, to quote his own language, proceeded to put himself through a regular course of training. There was a long siege of hard study before him, but one would have thought, by the way he went to work, that he was preparing himself for a physical rather than an intellectual contest. He rode hard, hunted perseveringly, kept up his regular exercise with Indian clubs and dumb-bells, and looked, as he said he felt, as if he were good for any amount of work.
Knowing how valuable a little advice would have been to them when they first joined the academy, Don and Bert rode over to see Lester, intending to give him some idea of the nature of the examination he would have to pass before he would be received as a student, and to drop a few hints that would enable him to keep out of trouble; but they never repeated the experiment. Lester was surly and not at all sociable; and he was so very independent, and seemed to have so much confidence in his ability to make his way without help from anybody, that his visitors took their leave without saying half as much to him as they had intended.
“I know what they are up to,” said Lester, who stood at the window watching Don and Bert as they rode away. “They have reasons for wishing to get on the right side of me. Somebody has probably told them that I am to have plenty of money to spend, and they intend that I shall spend some of it for their own benefit. I am going in for a shoulder-strap—I am not one to be satisfied with a sergeant’s warrant—and the first thing I shall do, after I get it, will be to take those stripes off Bert Gordon’s arms. He and his boot-black can’t order me around.”
This soliloquy will show that Lester had changed his mind in regard to the school at Bridgeport. He wanted to go there now. His father, who knew nothing about the academy beyond what Don and Bert had told him, and who judged it by the fashionable boarding-schools at which he had obtained the little knowledge he possessed, had neglected no opportunity to impress upon Lester’s mind the fact that a rich man’s son would not be allowed to remain long in the ranks, and that there was nothing to prevent him from winning and wearing an officer’s sword, if he would only use a little tact in pushing himself forward. After listening to such counsel as this, it was not at all likely that anything that Don and Bert could say would have any influence with him.
“He thinks he is going to have a walk over,” said Don, as he stroked his pony’s glossy mane.
“It looks that way, but there’s where he is mistaken,” replied Bert. “Lester will be walking an extra before he has been at the academy a week.”