"In disgrace!"
"Yes, and he's going to be fired. Whoop!"
The first speaker was Bull Harris. At the moment he was red in the face and breathless as the result of a long run across the parade ground. At the end of it he had burst suddenly into the midst of a crowd of his classmates with the excited exclamation above.
The effect upon them of the startling announcement was electrical. To a man they had leaped to their feet, with expressions of delight they made no effort to conceal.
"How do you know it, Bull?" demanded one of the crowd.
"The superintendent has sent for him right in the middle of drill," cried Bull.
"What for?"
"I don't know. It's something he's been doing. One of the orderlies told me he heard the old man say he'd fire him. And that's all I know."
The babel of confusion and excited voices that resulted from this bit of news lasted without interruption for several minutes.
"It's too good to be true," they vowed. "By George, just as we were talking about him, wondering how we could get square with the confounded plebe, for his tricks! And now he's going to be fired."