"Come in, thar!" shouted a voice.
There were four occupants in the room. One was a round, fat-faced boy with an alarmed, nervous look, Cadet Joseph Smith, of Indianapolis, commonly known as "Indian."
In a chair by the window sat a still more curious figure, a lank, bony individual with ill-fitted, straying clothes and a long, sharp face.
Upon his big, bulging knees rested a leather-bound volume labeled "Dana's Geology," and opened at the Tertiary fossiliferous strata of the Hudson River Valley. "Parson" Peter Stanard was too much interested to notice the entrance of the cadets. He was trying to classify a Cyatho phylloid coral which he had just had the luck to find.
Sprawled upon the bed was another tall, slender fellow, his feet hoisted up on the pile of blankets at the foot. All the committee saw of "Texas" Powers was a pair of soles, for Texas didn't care to move.
The fourth party was a handsome, broad-shouldered chap, with curly brown hair. And to him Corporal Jasper, the spokesman, addressed himself.
"Mr. Mallory?" said he.
Mr. Mallory bowed.
"We have come as a committee representing the yearling class."
"I am honored," said Mr. Mallory.