Mark did not know the names of the three cadets who confronted him. Their faces were familiar and he knew that they were first classmen. That was evidently all that the committee considered necessary, for they did not stop for an introduction.
All of the Banded Seven's fun had, up to this point, been manifested against the yearlings, and it had been the yearlings, chiefly, whose wrath they had incurred. But that hop was too much; that had been an insult to every cadet, and Mark knew that he had made new and more powerful enemies. He could see that in the looks of the three stern and forbidding cadets who glared at him in silence, with folded arms.
"Mr. Mallory," said the spokesman.
Mark arose and bowed politely.
"What is it you wish?" said he.
"We have been sent to say a few words to you from the first class."
Another bow.
"In the first place Mr. Mallory, the class instructs us to say that your conduct at the hop the other night deserves their severest censure. You had no business to go."
"As a cadet of this academy," responded Mark, calmly, "I considered it my right."
"It has not been customary, sir," said the other, "for new cadets to go to the hops."