“Think of Texas running away!” laughed Mark. “Think of him not having Corporal Jasper to come in on Sunday mornings and lecture him for talking too much instead of sprucing up his tent as a cadet should. Think of his not having Captain Fisher to march him ’round to church after that and civilize him! Think of the yearlings having nobody to lick ’em any more! Think of Bull Harris, our beloved enemy, who hates us worse than I do warm cod liver oil, having nobody to fool him every once in a while and get him wild!”
Mark observed by that time from the twitching in his excitable friend’s fingers and the light that danced in his eye that his last hit had drawn blood. Texas was cured in a moment of all desire to leave West Point. For was not Bull Harris, “that ole coyote of a yearlin’,” a low, cowardly rascal who had tried every contemptible trick upon Mark that his ingenuity could invent, and who hadn’t had half his malignity and envy knocked out of him yet? And Texas go away? Not much!
Parson Stanard was heard from next. The Parson knew of a most extraordinary collection of fossils from the Subcarboniferous period. The Parson had been saving up for a year to buy those fossils, and now he meant to do it. He swore it by Zeus, and by Apollo, and by each one of the “Olympians” in turn. Also the Parson meant to do something handsome by that wonderful Cyathophylloid coral found by him in a sandstone of Tertiary origin. The Parson thought it would be a good idea to get up a little pamphlet on that most marvelous specimen, a pamphlet treating very learnedly upon the “distribution of the Cyathophylloid according to previous geological investigations and the probable revolutionary and monumental effects of the new modifications thereof.” The Parson had an idea he’d have a high old time writing that treatise.
Further discourse as to the probable uses of the treasure was cut short by the entrance of the inspecting officer, who scattered slaughter and trembling from his eye. Methusalem Z. Chilvers, “the farmer,” alias Sleepy, the fourth occupant of the tent, was responsible for disorder that week and the way he caught it was heartrending. He was so disgusted that as usual he vowed he was going to take his money back to Kansas and raise “craps.” After which the drum sounded and they all marched down to chapel.
A delightful feeling of independence comes with knowing you are rich. Perhaps you have never tried it, but the Seven were trying it just then. They beamed down contentedly on irate cadet corporals and unfriendly yearlings with an air of conscious superiority that seemed to say, “If you only knew.” Of the Seven there were only two who were at all used to the sensation of being wealthy. Texas’ “dad,” “the Honorable Scrap Powers, o’ Hurricane County,” owned a few hundred thousand head of cattle, and Chauncey, “the dude,” was a millionaire from New York; but all the others were quite poor. Mark was calculating just then what a satisfaction he meant to have in sending some of that money to his widowed mother, to whom it would be a very welcome present indeed.
He was thinking of that in the course of the afternoon, when church and likewise dinner had passed, leaving the plebes at leisure. And so he proposed to them that they take a walk to pass the time and incidentally bring some of that buried wealth back with them. Nothing could have suited the Seven better, as it happened. They were all anxiety again to get up to that cave and hear those gold coins jingle once more. To cut the story short, they went.
It was a merry party that set out through the woods that afternoon. The Seven were usually merry, as we know, but they had extra causes just then. Everything was going about as well for them as things in the world could be expected to go. And besides this, Parson Stanard, who was a wellspring of fun at all times, was in one of his most solemn and therefore laughable moods at present.
The thought had occurred to the Parson, as his first sordid flush of delight at having wealth had passed, that after all he was in a very unscholarly condition indeed. The very idea of a man of learning being rich! Why it was preposterous; where was all the starving in garrets of genius and the pinching poverty that was always the fate of the true patrons of Minerva. That worried the Parson more than you can imagine; he felt himself a traitor to his chosen profession. And with much solemn abjurgation and considerable classical circumlocution he called the Seven’s attention to that deplorable state of affairs. Search the records of history as he could, the Parson could not find a parallel for his own unfortunate condition. And he wound up the afternoon’s discussion by wishing, yea, by Zeus, that he could be poor and happy once more.
Dewey suggested very solemnly that nobody was going to compel the unfortunate Parson to claim his share, “b’gee”; that he (Dewey) would be pleased to take it if he were only paid enough to make it worth while. But somehow or other the Parson didn’t fall into that plan very readily; perhaps he didn’t think Dewey really meant it.
Still chatting merrily, the Seven made their way through the mile or two of woods that lay between the post and the cave.