Dick Prescotts First Year at West Point | Page 3

H. Irving Hancock
and keep moving right along."
So they reached the cadet hospital. The orderly marched them into a spacious, almost bare room on the ground floor and announced:
"I will report to the surge on. Young gentlemen, wait until you are called."
"I wish I could carry myself and step the way that fellow does," whispered Dick, his admiring gaze following the retreating orderly.
"Well, that's what we've come here to learn," replied Greg. "That is, if we get by the doctors-and then the beastly academic grind."
Now, to keep his mind occupied, Dick Prescott fell to observing, covertly, the other candidates.
These were of all sorts and sizes. They represented all parts of the United States and every walk in social life. Out of the group were two or three who, judging by their clothing, might have been sons of washerwomen. There were other youngsters whose general appearance and bearing seemed to proclaim that they came from homes of wealth. But the majority of the young men appeared to have come from the same walk in life as did Dick and Greg.
Our two young friends were by no means the most smartly nor the most correctly attired young men there. On their way to New York Prescott and Holmes had discovered, by taking mental notes of the other male passengers on the train, that these two Gridley boys had missed something from the most correct styles then prevailing in the larger cities.
Dick and Greg were both solidly and substantially attired, yet there was an indefinable something about them which proclaimed them to be young men from one of the smaller cities of the United States.
"I can see those medical big-wigs pawing me over now," shivered Greg. "I suppose, at a place as wonderful and as learned as West Point, the doctors are all fussy old men, with their gold-rimmed spectacles and shiny frock coats."
"Wait and see," advised Dick, trying to get a grip on himself to control his nervousness.
Another door opened, to admit a dandified and very smart-looking young officer, apparently about twenty-five years of age.
'You're all ready, young gentlemen?" he asked smilingly.
"We're waiting for the doctor," replied Greg, who was close to the door by which the officer had entered.
"I am one of the surgeons," replied the young officer pleasantly.
"Gee whiz!" remarked one raw-boned youth, in what was meant to be a confidential whisper, but which rose to a pitch that carried it around the room. "Say, he doesn't look much like our old saw-bones doe down home way!"
The surgeon was followed by a smart-looking soldier of the hospital corps, who started to close the shades of the room.
"You have all been to the treasurer's office and deposited your funds?" asked the young surgeon, turning again. This time his question appeared to be addressed to Dick more particularly than to anyone else.
"Why, no, sir," Prescott replied. "I have all my money in my pocket yet."
"Orderly!" spoke the surgeon to his own man of the hospital corps, who wheeled, brought his heels together and stood at attention. "Bring in that orderly who conducted the young gentle-men here."
"Yes, sir," replied the hospital orderly, wheeling about and vanishing from the room. He was back again in a moment with the soldier who had brought in this batch of candidates without interviewing the treasurer.
"Orderly," spoke the surgeon, "you have overlooked one part of your instructions. You did not take these candidates to the treasurer 'a office."
"No, sir."
"Do so now. Then conduct the candidates back here."
"Very good, sir."
Signing to the candidates to rise and follow him outside, the orderly himself led the way.
"Say, that was neatly done. No calling the man down; no bluster," whispered Greg as the candidates again walked along the sidewalk.
"It's the Army way, I take it," murmured Dick.
This time the orderly marched his awkward squad straight to the cadet store and into the treasurer's office.
"O-o-o-h !" groaned Greg in an undertone.
"What's the matter?" demanded Dick in a cautious whisper.
"This delay and killing suspense before we get before the doctors. I'll bet my fever has gone up above one hundred and three degrees!"
"Form in line, and each one of you turn in all his money," directed the treasurer crisply.
Each candidate was required to deposit with the treasurer the sum of one hundred dollars. In the event that the candidate "passed" successfully to enrollment in the cadet corps, then this money was to be applied to the purchase of things necessary for the new cadet to have. In case the candidate did not pass he would receive his hundred dollars back again-enough, in almost any case, to take the young man safely back to his home.
The first three men to step before the treasurer each turned in a few dollars in excess of the hundred.
Each was handed the treasurer's receipt for the exact amount that he deposited.
Then came
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