Dick Prescottss Fourth Year at West Point | Page 6

replied Stubbs boldly.
"Then how can you stand for a bootlick?" shot out Jordan angrily.
"I don't stand for a bootlick," replied Cadet Stubbs. "I never did."
"Now, I don't want to play baby," went on Jordan half eagerly. "I'm not
resenting, on my own account, what happened to-day. But it was an
outrage on general principles, for the affair made a fool of me before a
lot of new yearlings. Stubbs, we're first classmen, and we shouldn't be
humiliated before yearlings in this manner."
"I wasn't there," replied Stubbs. "I was over at the rifle range, you
know."
"Then I'll tell you what happened."
Cadet Jordan began a narration of the scene that had ended in his being
relieved from engineering instruction that forenoon. Jordan didn't
exactly lie, which is always a dangerous thing for a West Point cadet to
do, but he colored his narrative so cleverly as to make it rather plain
that Cadet Prescott had acted beyond his real authority.
"Still," argued Stubbs doubtfully, "there must have been some reason.
I've known Prescott ever since he entered the Academy, and I never
saw anything underhanded in him."
"I wouldn't call it underhanded, either," explained Jordan. "Prescott's
manner with me might much better be described as overbearing."
"It would have been underhanded, had he reported you when you were
really doing nothing unmilitary or improper," interposed Stubbs
quickly.
"Are you trying to defend the fellow?" demanded Jordan swiftly.
"No; Prescott, I think, is always quite ready to attend to his own
defence. But I'm astonished, Jordan, at the charge you make against
him, and I'm trying to understand it."

"What I object to, more than anything else," insisted Jordan, "was his
making a fool of me before new yearlings. That is where I think the
greatest grievance lies. First classmen are men of some dignity. We are
not to be treated like plebes, especially by any members of our own
class who may be dressed in a little brief authority. Sit down, won't you,
Stubbs?"
"No, thank you, Jordan. I must be on my way soon."
"But I want to get you and a half a dozen other representative first
classmen together," wheedled Jordan. "I think we should all talk this
over as a strictly class matter. Then, if I'm convinced that I'm in the
wrong, I'm going to stop talking."
Crafty Jordan didn't mean exactly what he said.
He would stop talking, if convinced, but he didn't intend to be
convinced. He was after Dick Prescott's scalp. Jordan well knew that, at
West Point (and at Annapolis, too, for that matter) class action against a
man is severer and more irrevocable than even any action that the
authorities of the Military Academy itself can take. He wanted to put
Prescott wholly in the wrong in the matter. Class action could, at need,
drive Prescott out of the corps and end his connection with the Army.
For, if a man be condemned by his class at West Point, the feud is
carried over into the Army as long as the offender against class ethics
dares try to remain in the service.
At the least, Jordan hoped to stir up class feeling to such an extent that,
if Prescott were not actually "cut" by class action, at least his popularity
would be greatly dimmed.
"So won't you take part in the meeting?" coaxed Jordan, as Cadet
Stubbs moved toward the door.
"I don't believe I will," replied Mr. Stubbs. "I'd feel out of place in such
a crowd, for I've always considered myself Prescott's friend."
"Do you place your friendship for Prescott above the dignity and honor

of the class?" demanded Jordan.
Stubbs flushed.
"I don't believe I'll stay, Jordan, thank you. But I can offer you some
advice, if you feel in need of any."
"Yes? Commence firing!"
"Go slow in your grudge against Prescott. Personally, I don't want to
see either of you hurt."
"Oh, Prescott won't really be hurt," sneered Jordan. "He told me flatly
that he'd decline any calling out that I might attempt."
"You---you didn't try to call him out, did you?"
"I hinted that I might do so."
"Call him out for reporting you?"
"Oh, I didn't specify what the cause of the challenge would be,"
returned Jordan airily and with a knowing wink.
"Jordan, old fellow, you don't mean that you'd call a cadet out for
reporting you officially? Why, that's against every tenet we have. And
if such a challenge came to the ears of the superintendent, or of the
commandant of cadets, you'd be fired out of the corps before you'd
have time to turn around twice."
"Who'd carry the tale that I did call Prescott out?" retorted Cadet Jordan,
with a knowing leer.
"Prescott would, if he were a tenth