Dick Prescottss Fourth Year at West Point | Page 7

part of the bootlick that you
represent him to be," replied Stubbs.
"Better stay, old man; and I'll call in a few others."
"No, sir," returned Cadet Stubbs, with a shake of his head. "The further

I go into this matter the less I like it. I'm on my way, Jordan."
Within half an hour, however, Cadet Jordan had found three members
of the first class who were willing to listen to him. The matter was
threshed out very fully. Jordan, to his listeners, pooh poohed at the idea
that he was "sore" on his own account. He posed, and rather well, as the
champion of first-class dignity.
"I think you're on the right track, Jordan," assented Durville rather
heartily. Durville was one of the few who had never liked Dick well.
Durville had always been one of the "wild" ones, and Prescott's ideas of
soldierly duty had grated a good deal on Durville's own beliefs.
"The class won't take severe action, anyway," hinted Tupper. "We
might vote to give Prescott a week's 'silence,' but any permanent 'cut'
would be out of the question. The man has done too many things to
make himself popular."
"Besides," chimed in Brown, "look at the place Prescott holds on the
Army football eleven. Why he---and Holmes, too, of course---were the
pair who saved us from the Navy last November. And we rely upon
that pair to a tremendous extent for the successes we expect this
coming fall."
Jordan's jaw dropped. In the heat of his anger he had lost sight of the
football situation. Prescott and Holmes certainly were the prize players
of the Army eleven.
"Well, it might do if the class decided on the 'silence' for Prescott for a
week," assented Jordan dubiously.
Then, all of a sudden, he brightened as the thought flashed through his
mind:
"If Prescott gets the 'silence,' even for a day, he'll be so furious that he'll
do half a dozen fool things that I can provoke him into. Then he'll go so
far, in his wrath, that the class will cut him for good and all, and he'll
buy his ticket home!"

The more Jordan thought this over, while he pretended to be listening
to what his classmates were saying, the surer the cadet plotter felt that
he could work his enemy out of the corps within the next week or so.
"Well, I dare say that you fellows are right in advising milder
measures," admitted Jordan at last. "Of course, though I try not to let
my personal feelings enter into this at all, yet I suppose I can't keep my
sense of outraged class dignity wholly untainted by my personal
feelings. Besides, the 'silence' for a week will doubtless cover all the
needs of the case, and I don't bear the fellow any personal grudge, or I
try not to."
"That's a sensible, manly view, Jordan," chimed in Brown, "and it does
you credit as a gentleman and a man of honor. Now, you know, it's a
fearful thing for a man who has reached the first class to have to drop
his Army career at the last moment. So we'll try to bring the majority of
the class around to the idea of the week's 'silence.'"
"Now, lest it appear as though I were actuated by personal motives,"
continued Jordan, "I'll have to stand back and let you fellows do the
talking with the other men of the class."
"That's all right," nodded Durville. "We wholly understand the delicacy
of your position, and we can attend to it all right. Besides, all we have
to do, anyway, is to ascertain how the class feels on the matter."
"Don't let it be lost sight of, though," begged Jordan, almost betraying
his over anxiety, "that it is a serious matter of class dignity and honor."
"We won't, old man," promised Durville, as the visitors rose.
As soon as he was alone---for his tentmate was away on a cavalry drill,
Jordan rose, his eyes flashing with triumph.
"Dick Prescott, I believe I have you where I want you! What a rage
you'll be in, if you get the 'silence'! 'Whom the gods would destroy they
first make mad,'" Jordan went on, under his breath, wholly unaware
that he had parodied the meaning of that famous quotation. "You'll rage

with anger, Prescott. You'll do the very things that will warrant the
class in giving you the long 'cut.'"
The "silence" is a form of rebuke that the cadet corps, once in many
years, administers to one of the many Army officers who are stationed
over them. When the cadet corps decides to give an officer the
"silence," the proceeding is a unique one.
Whenever an officer under this ban approaches a group of cadets they
cease talking, and remain