“With what result?”
“A seaman had taken my part, and he was also arrested by the constable; but the judge made the lads pay me for my toy ship, and released the sailor and myself.”
“I am glad to see, Merrill, that you have told a very modest and uncompromising story of the affair, for I have here a letter from a witness, and he is not as lenient toward the lads who assailed you,” and in a quick glance at a letter which the commandant turned back over a file to find, Mark saw the name of “Jack Judson.”
Then the commandant continued:
“I have received several other letters from your old home, all of them compromising, but as they were anonymous I simply retain them for reference, as only a coward will refuse to put his name to an accusation against one he maligns. You can go to your quarters now, to await further orders.”
Mark saluted and departed from headquarters, when the commandant summoned an orderly and gave him the list of the cadets whose names he had taken down, ordering their presence before him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE ALTERNATIVE.
So high is the standard of honor among Uncle Sam’s cadets that one’s word is as good as his bond in all things, and a man who would go wrong and do a despicable thing is despised and ostracised by his comrades at once.
Instances are very rare in naval and military life where an officer goes wrong, though now and then one does hear that a paymaster, quartermaster, or commissary has gotten his accounts in a tangle, or that some officer has been guilty of a “shady transaction” to get out of debt; but, as I have said, the instances are so rare that when they do occur they come as a shock upon the whole service, afloat and ashore.