"If you do," said the other, "the class will take it upon itself to prevent that fight, using brute force if necessary, and punishing you severely for your impertinence. And moreover you will be required to defend your right to resist their authority, to defend it against every member of the class."
"All at once?" inquired Mark, with a tinge of irony.
"No, sir. Separately, and in fair fight."
Mark was thoughtful and silent again.
"The consequences," he said, at last, "are unpleasant. The consequences of swallowing so gross and unmerited an insult as Mr. Wright's, given before hundreds of people, are more unpleasant still. Dewey!"
That young man sprang to his feet with an excited "B'gee!"
"Dewey," said Mark, in slow and measured tones, and never once taking his eyes off the three stern cadets, "Dewey, you will return for me, please, to Mr. Wright's tent. Tell Mr. Wright for me that I demand an apology by this evening—or else that he name a time and place. And tell him finally that if he refuses I shall consider myself unfortunately obliged to knock him down the first time I see him."
"Bully, b'gee!"
"Wow!"
The six plebes had leaped to their feet as one man, with a wild hurrah! Oh, could anything have been better than that? Those three cadets had fairly quailed before Mark's bold and sudden, yet calm defiance.