“Boys, this is disgraceful! I hope never to witness a scene like this in my school again. Lieutenant Brightly and Cadet Belcher, you will both report at my office at half-past seven o’clock. Drummer, beat the mess-call!”
Belcher was led back to the faucet by his friends, and Brightly was hurried up to his room by Harple, while the battalion fell in for supper.
“Charley, I’ve made a fool of myself, haven’t I?” asked Brightly, when the door of their room was closed on them.
“I’m afraid you have, Bright,” was the reply. “I guess you’ve spoiled everything now. You’ve lost your shoulder-straps without doubt.”
Harple took the pitcher and hurried down the hall for some warm water with which to bathe his friend’s wounds. “I haven’t much hope for you after this,” he said, returning. “You simply won’t listen to advice.”
“Well, how could I help it, Charley?” Brightly stood in his shirt-sleeves, waiting for the water. His wrath was rising again at the remembrance of Belcher’s taunting words.
“How could I help it?” he repeated. “A fellow would have to be more than human to stand such abuse. It was simply impossible not to strike him.”
“Well, there’s no use talking about it; that part of it’s over. The next chapter is what you’ve got to look out for now,—the one that opens up at half-past seven. If I thought you’d take any advice at all, I’d counsel you, when you get in before Colonel Silsbee, to own up, say you are sorry, agree to abide squarely by your sentence, and then go to work and get back to your old place again.”
Harple bathed his chum’s face and neck carefully, and dressed a slight wound on the cheek. Clean linen and a fresh coat restored Brightly to an appearance of respectability, and then the two hurried down to the supper-room.
At half-past seven o’clock the principal of Riverpark Academy sat in his office, awaiting the appearance of the offenders. He was troubled and anxious,—not so much because two of his pupils had engaged in a rough-and-tumble fight, as because the entire school seemed trembling on the verge of disorder, of which he feared that this encounter was the first serious manifestation.