“No matter. He has talked about us, and told things that his good sense, if he had any, ought to have led him to conceal, and I’ll never go near his house again. I think Fred and Joe might treat us with a little more respect after what we did for their relatives when the Mystery was wrecked.”
As it is possible the reader may think so too, we hasten to assure him that it was not Fred’s fault nor Joe’s that they could not be friends with Lester and Enoch. These two had a faculty of driving every decent boy away from them. When they arrived in Rochdale, Fred and Joe lost no time in calling upon them, to tell them how grateful they were for what they had done for their friends when their lives were in peril, but Lester showed them very plainly, by his actions, that he did not thank them for the visit. They wouldn’t have anything to do with him when he was plain Lester Brigham, he said; but now that he was Lester Brigham the hero, they were anxious to cultivate his acquaintance. That was something to which he could not consent; and so he, and Enoch and Jones following his example, snubbed Fred and Joe most royally as often as the opportunity was presented. If the high-spirited Packard boys grew tired of such treatment after a while, and showed Lester and his boastful guests up in their true colors, can anybody blame them?
“Here comes Don,” said Jones, in a suppressed voice. “Don’t salute him.”
“Of course not!” exclaimed Lester, who seemed to grow angry at the mere mention of such a thing. “We are not at the academy now, and we are just as good as he is.”
“Hallo, major!” cried all the Rochdale boys, as Don and his brother came into the store. “Glad to see you back safe and sound, and none the worse for your fight with the rioters. You don’t act a bit stuck up if you are a big officer.”
“Just listen to ’em!” whispered Lester, who could not conceal his indignation. “The world is full of toadies.”
“And always will be,” answered Jones, who was equally angry and disgusted. “Whenever some fortunate accident raises a chap a round or two, you will always find plenty who are willing to bow to him.”
“Well, major,” said Fred Packard, “I hear that—”
“O, for goodness sake, drop that,” interrupted Don. “Drop it, I say, or I’ll not talk to you. I am at home now, and I want to forget school and every thing connected with it until the time comes to go back.”
Don’s friends knew very well that he cared nothing for his military title, except in so far as it marked his standing at the academy, and that was the reason they addressed him by it—simply to bother him. They gathered in a group about him and Bert, and Lester and his two friends being left to themselves, secured their mail as soon as the window was opened, and left the post-office, looking straight before them as they passed out at the door, and giving the brothers no chance to salute them, even if it had been their place to do so.