“It’s not so worse, but they teach you so much soldiering that there isn’t much time for anything else. And you have to live on schedule all day long, and that gets tiresome. I kicked myself out last May. Couldn’t stand it any longer.”
“Kicked yourself out?” echoed Dud questioningly.
“Yes, they wouldn’t do it so I had to. I tried about everything I could think of, but the best they’d do was to put me in the jug and feed me bread and water. I spent so much time in ‘solitary’ that I got so I liked it. It gives you a fine chance to think, and I’m naturally of a very thoughtful disposition. Say, I used to think perfectly wonderful thoughts in the jug, thoughts that made a better boy of me!”
Jimmy grinned. “What did you do to get punished?” he asked with lamentable eagerness.
“What little I could,” sighed Crail. “There wasn’t much a fellow could do. You see, you’re dreadfully confined. The last time I set a bucket of water outside the commandant’s door and rang the fire gong. He came out in a hurry and didn’t see the bucket and put his foot in it. He was awfully peeved about it. I told him he ought to blame his own awkwardness.”
“And they fired you then?”
“Oh, no, they jugged me again. Six days that time. Six days is the limit.”
“What did you do when they kicked you out?” asked Dud.
“They didn’t kick me out. I gave them all the chance in the world, but they wouldn’t part with me. Stubborn lot of hombres. So I held a court martial on myself one afternoon, found myself guilty of gross disobedience and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and sentenced myself to dishonorable discharge. Then I wrote down the finding of the court, tucked it under the commandant’s door and mushed out of there. They came after me but I doubled back, and swapped clothes with a fellow I met on the road—he didn’t want to swap, but I persuaded him to—and then walked back to Dunning and took a train for home. Military academies are all right for some fellows, but they irk me considerable.”