“Private Lester Brigham, room 39, third floor!” shouted the corporal who was acting as Bert’s assistant; and this broke up the party about the stove, and put an end to the discussion. Lester followed the porter, who shouldered his trunk and went up stairs with it. He had a great curiosity to see who it was that he was to be “chummed” on during the year, and when he reached the room to which he had been assigned, he found out, for the boy was there waiting for him.
“It’s just what I might have expected from that little snipe of a Bert Gordon,” soliloquized Lester, when his eyes fell upon his new room-mate, who was sitting at the table with a book before him. “Instead of chumming me on a decent fellow, like Enoch Williams, he has gone and shoved me in with one of the good little boys. I shall see no fun in my room this term.” Then, aloud, he said, as he extended a very limp hand to be shaken by the boy at the table: “Ah! Ross, you and I are to live together for awhile, are we? I don’t know how we shall get on, for your way of enjoying yourself and mine are widely different.”
“Perhaps there will not be as much difference this term as there was last,” answered Ross, sinking back in his chair, while Lester opened his trunk and took out his uniform. “I came here, last term, fully resolved to behave myself. I studied hard; I never ran the guard to eat pancakes at Cony Ryan’s; I never wilfully disobeyed any of the rules of the school; and what did I make by it? Not even a corporal’s stripes. You and your crowd set the law at defiance, ran away in Mr. Packard’s schooner, and had a good time generally, and yet you are no worse off to-day than I am. What makes you look at me in that way?” added Ross, for Lester, who was kneeling in front of his trunk, never took his eyes off his room-mate’s face while the latter was speaking.
“It is because I am surprised to hear you talk so,” was the reply. “I thought you were one of the good boys, and when I came into this room and found whom I was chummed on, I was disgusted. Williams wanted me put in his room, but Bert Gordon wouldn’t listen to it. I suppose he was afraid we would get up another runaway scheme.”
“You fellows must have had lots of fun while you were gone,” continued Ross.
“We certainly did,” replied Lester, with great enthusiasm. “Of course, we knew that we would be captured in time, for, with the exception of Williams and myself, there was not a boy on board the Sylph who knew how to stand his trick at the wheel. I suppose you know that I was the original commander of the yacht?”
“Yes; I heard all about it. Why did you give it up?”
“Because I wasn’t sure that I could handle so large a vessel as the Sylph in a narrow river, having always been accustomed to plenty of sea room. Besides, Enoch wanted the command, and I didn’t. I proposed the thing, and so long as the boys got some fun out of it, that was all I cared for.”
“Have you thought of anything for this term?” inquired Ross.
“I have not; and if any of the other fellows have, I don’t know it.”