“I don’t exactly know,” he said. “B’gee, I’ve forgotten lots of things in the last ten minutes. I’ll come in and think ’em over and tell you.”
He entered the tent, and after gazing at himself ruefully in the looking-glass that hung by the tent pole, wet a towel and fell to washing things gently.
“B’gee!” he muttered, “Mark Mallory, there’s going to be no end of trouble on account of this.”
“You haven’t told me yet,” said the other. “You don’t mean that you’ve been getting hazed some more?”
“Would you call it hazing,” responded Dewey, “if you’d been pummeled until you looked like rare beef? You needn’t be getting angry about it. We’ll have plenty of time for that later. Meantime, just you listen to my tale of woe, b’gee! I was down on Flirtation Walk a while ago, off in a lonely part. And all of a sudden I came across half a dozen yearlings. One of them was Bull Harris, and when he saw me he turned to the other cadets and called: ‘There’s one of the gang now! We might just as well start at what we agreed on.’ And then, b’gee, they started. Do you think that eye’ll shut up entirely?”
“What did they do?” demanded Mark, his blood boiling as he surveyed his comrade’s bruises.
“Well, b’gee, they sailed up, in the first place, and began a lot of talking. ‘You belong to that Mallory gang, don’t you?’ said Bull Harris. ‘Yes,’ says I, ‘I do, and I’m proud of it, too. What’s the matter with Mallory?’ ‘Matter?’ roared Gus Murray. ‘B’gee, he’s the confoundedest freshest plebe that ever came to this academy. Hasn’t he dared to refuse to let us haze him? Hasn’t he played all kinds of tricks upon us, made life miserable for us? Hasn’t he even dared to go to the hop, something no plebe has ever dared to do in the history of West Point?’ ‘Seeing that you’re asking the question, b’gee,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind telling you by way of answer that he has, and also that he’s outwitted you and licked you at every turn. And that he’ll do it again the first chance he gets, and b’gee, I’ll be there to help him, too! How’s that?’”
Here the reckless youngster paused while he removed the cork of a vaseline bottle; then he continued:
“That made old Bull wild; he hates you like fury, Mark, and he’s simply wild about the way we fooled him with that treasure. He began to rear around like a wild man. ‘If you fool plebes think we’re going to stand your impudence,’ he yelled, ‘you’re mistaken! I want you to understand that we’ve found out about that confounded organization Mallory’s gotten up among the plebes to fight us——’”
“Did he say that?” cried Mark, in surprise. “How did they learn?”