“How do you mean?” asked Mark, slowly.
He knew what Dewey meant, and so did all the others, but none of them liked to say it.
“Simply,” said Dewey—“as the Parson always remarks when he starts one of his long chemical formulas—simply, b’gee, that Bull has tried to get us dismissed from West Point a few dozen times. I don’t know how often it’s been, but I know it’s been at least seventy times seven we’ve forgiven him. And now, b’gee, I say we get square, just for once.”
“I see what you mean,” responded Mark, shaking his head. “It might be fair for me to get Bull expelled in some way, but I don’t like that.”
“Pshaw!” growled Texas, angrily. “I’d like to know why not. Ef we don’t, Bull Harris will get us fired dead sho’, doggone his boots!”
“And self-preservation is the first law of nature,” chimed in Dewey, “as the undertaker remarked when he swallowed his embalming fluid, b’gee.”
Mark laughed, but he still shook his head; the solemn Parson cleared his throat.
“Ahem,” said he, “by Zeus! Gentlemen, this is no time for a scientific dissertation, or exemplification, so to speak. I was remarking—ahem—that no one would be less inclined to burden you with a lengthy discourse at this most inopportune moment. I shall, accordingly, confine myself strictly to a lucid exposition of the concatenation of complex circumstances involved, avoiding all technicalities——”
Dewey fainted here and had to be revived by an imaginary bottle of smelling-salts. He refused emphatically to come to, but vowed he wanted to stay unconscious till “it was over.” All of which byplay was lost upon the grave scholar.
What the Parson meant to say was finally ascertained by the rest, who were now nearly restored to their usual gayety, forgetful of all such details as sheriffs and shotguns. It appeared that the Parson was quoting the law of self-defense, that a man whose life is threatened may kill the man who menaces him. The Parson cited many authorities, legal, philosophical and theological, to prove the validity of that assumption. Then he proposed the question whether this case might not be an “analogue,” as he called it, whether or not Bull Harris, who was threatening to have Mark dismissed, did not make himself liable to the same treatment. It was a nice point in casuistry, and the Parson vowed that in all his investigation of theoretical ethical complications he had never met, etc., etc.