"Oh, you brute!" muttered Greg, standing in the middle of the
room and shaking his fist in the direction of the area.
"Meaning--whom?" queried Prescott, with a wan smile.
"Whom could I mean but Brayton?" almost hissed young Holmes.
"Why does that fellow hate us all so?"
"I'll tell you a secret, if you want to hear it," proposed Dick
mysteriously.
"Please!" begged Candidate Holmes.
"Then I don't believe he does hate us."
"What?" gasped Greg incredulously.
"I don't believe he'd remember half our faces if he passed the
members of his squad in the area right now," declared Dick.
"Then why does he persecute us so?" demanded Greg indignantly.
"I don't believe it is persecution," Dick continued.
"Then why, in the name of all that's kindly, does that fellow put us
under the heel of hateful usage? Why must we submit to the
tyranny of that cadet corporal?"
"It's the West Point way--that's all, I guess."
"Do you propose to submit to it?" challenged Greg.
"Yes," retorted Dick soberly. "I don't want to have to leave the
Academy and go home stamped a failure."
"Neither do I," admitted Candidate Holmes in a more moderate
tone.
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