Mark Merrill really felt sorry for Clemmons, and the little advice given the youth he decided to take to heart.
He had seen several military companies parading, and that was all, but he meant to do his best.
He fell in line, and when shown the “position of a soldier” by the splendid young drill-master, he determined to keep his mind upon the duty before him.
In spite of his having been a “captain,” Scott Clemmons was found more fault with than all the others of the awkward squad.
“You are wrong, sir,” shouted Cadet Nazro. “Just see how you stand. Your drill master must have been a veteran of 1812. Now these men can learn, for they know nothing; but you know it all, and like most know-alls, you give no demonstration of your knowledge. See Merrill there, how well he stands, and I have not had to correct him a second time, nor Perry either. Look to it, Captain Clemmons, that I don’t have to correct you again.”
There were others of the greenhorns who got rebuffs, also, but for some reason Officer Herbert Nazro seemed to have picked upon Scott Clemmons for his especial target of ill-natured flings.
“He has only himself to blame for it,” said Bemis Perry to Mark, when the squad was dismissed, after the hardest work the new men had ever known.
“Yes, he should have kept quiet about having been captain of his company,” Mark returned.
“As I did; for I was three years at the military school in Charleston, but to-day convinced me that the drill there is nothing in comparison to this naval school. We shall see stars here, Merrill.”
“I have become convinced of that,” was Mark’s laughing response.