A DINNER IN PROSPECT.
“I say, Gordon!” exclaimed Colonel Mack, as he stretched himself at full
length upon the sofa in the neatly furnished dormitory which the ranking
officers of the battalion, whoever they might be, always occupied in
common. “This thing is getting to be monotonous. Put away that
cyclopedia and talk to me.”
Don closed the ponderous book of reference, which he had been intently
studying for the last hour, and putting his hands into his pockets
settled back in his chair and looked across the table toward his chum.
“Do you know that Enoch Williams and his crowd declare that it is a
downright shame the way things are going on?” continued Mack. “They say
that your promotion, and the manifesto you issued at the beginning of
the term, have taken the pluck and ambition out of every decent boy in
the academy.”
“What manifesto?” demanded Don.
“About guard-running.”
“I didn’t issue any.”
“Didn’t you say that you were going to do your best to put a stop to it,
and that every boy who succeeded in getting out of the grounds after
taps could call on you for the price of a plate of pancakes at Cony
Ryan’s?”
“I did, and you said the same thing.”
“I know it; and I know, too, that we have brought blessings on our heads
from two different factions—from the faculty, who say that the battalion
was never in better trim than it is at present; and from Lester Brigham
and his adherents, who declare that we are the meanest pair that ever
lived, and that we exceed our authority every day in the week. They
would like to disgrace us before the whole school, if they could.”
Don laughed, but said nothing. He knew just how Enoch and the fellows
who had accompanied him on his runaway expedition felt toward himself
and Mack, but it did not make him at all uncomfortable. He ate and
slept, and enjoyed himself in various ways as well as he ever did. Being
one of the highest officers of the academy it was his duty to prevent,
as far as lay in his power, all violations of the rules. This duty he
performed quietly and effectually, and without fear or favor. He seemed
to know everything that went on in and about the academy. He did not
intend that what he said concerning guard-running should become noised
abroad; but somehow it did, and a great many threats had been made. In
addition to this, Cony Ryan had offered extra inducements to the
successful guard-runner, but no one had yet come forward to claim the
pancakes. Don knew that if a single student escaped from the grounds
through his negligence, he (Don) would be a candidate for a
court-martial, which would put an end to all his hopes of picking up the
lieutenant-colonel’s shoulder-straps when Mack laid them down at the
close of the school term.
“There’s lots of uneasy fellows here this term,” continued Mack. “Hadn’t
we better let up on them a little and give them a chance to show their
hands?”
Don, remembering that there was a time, and it was not so very long ago
either, when he would have been prompt to “show his hand” if his
officers had “let up” on him in the slightest degree, answered that he
couldn’t think of it. He had learned that a student who behaved himself,
and who could look his mother in the face when he went home to spend his
vacations, had a clearer conscience and a mind that was much more at
ease than one who was constantly setting himself up in opposition to
lawful authority, and he was resolved that there should be no breaking
of the rules that term if he could help it.
“But just think how full last term was crowded of fun and excitement,
and how very dull and uninteresting this one is by comparison,” said
Mack, in a doleful voice. “First we had a chase after Huggins.”
“That didn’t amount to much,” said Don. “It was soon over.”
“But still it was exciting while it lasted. The tramp who stole
Huggins’s money might have made an end of you with that knife of his if
you hadn’t been a good swordsman. Then came the strikes and the fight
with the rioters at Hamilton Creek bridge, and after that Enoch Williams
woke us up with his runaway expedition, and gave us a chance to take a
week’s sail on the bay. What have we had to keep our blood in motion
this year? Not a thing.”
“Does the unusual quiet worry you?” asked Don.
“No, but it makes me tired. I am heartily sick of this eternal study and
drill, and I should like to go somewhere and do something. I was in
hopes that your friend Lester Brigham would be up and doing before this
time; but he seems to have gone to sleep like the rest of the
discontented ones, and I don’t believe we shall have a single thing to
break the monotony of the school routine during the year.”
“There will be your class dinner on the 31st of the month,” suggested
Don.
“But what does the class dinner amount to?” exclaimed Mack. “A lot of
students, following the example set them by their fathers, who, perhaps,
had no better way of passing the time, hire a hall, or get together in
the dining-room of a hotel at Hamilton, stuff themselves with things
that they might better let alone, make a few speeches in which they
pledge undying friendship to one another, and when the term is ended
they separate and go their several ways, plunge into some business or
profession and perhaps never think of the matter again. And that reminds
me that our committee ought to report at the meeting to-night. Let’s go
down and see if they have come back yet.”
The committee to which Mack referred was composed of three boys
belonging to the first class, who had been sent up to Hamilton with full
power to make all arrangements for the coming dinner, which was intended
to be a grand affair. More than that, they took with them a large
package of notes from the committee on invitation, addressed to
prominent citizens of Hamilton, including the commanding officer of the
61st and his staff. The members of this committee had just come from the
depot, and the young officers found them gathered about the big stove in
the hall, making an informal report of their day’s work to a few boys in
their own class, regardless of the fact that several students who were
members of other classes were loitering about within earshot. But what
did they care for that? The graduating class had always made a great
stir about their dinners, and no doubt this committee took unbounded
delight in tantalizing their auditors by telling, in glowing language,
of the good things they were going to serve up to their Hamilton guests.
It appeared that the class had a goodly sum of money in the hands of
Colonel Mack, the treasurer, and that this committee had provided for
the spending of every cent of it.
“You can see for yourself that this dinner of ours will exhaust all the
resources of the _cuisine_,” said one of the committee, in a
grandiloquent tone, after the chairman had told Mack just what he and
his companions had done in the city during the day; “and the decorations
of the banqueting hall will be correspondingly rich and elaborate.”
“In other words it will be bang-up,” observed the chairman. “All those
nobby officers of the Sixty-first, to whom we presented the invitations
in person, promised to be on hand, and the colonel said he would give
them permission to appear in uniform. The boys said they wanted us to
make this dinner go ahead of anything that was ever heard of in this
academy, and when it comes off they will find that we have obeyed
instructions. It will be something to talk about, and there won’t be a
hitch anywhere. We told Mr. Taylor to do his level best, and send all
his bills to you as treasurer of the class, and he said it was all
right.”
The members of the committee talked in this way until the mouths of the
boys who were standing around, and who had no part nor lot in the
matter, began to water; then, having thoroughly warmed their fingers,
they went up to their dormitories, and in a few minutes the lower hall
was deserted by all save a single student, who paced back and forth with
his hands in his pockets, and his eyes fastened thoughtfully on the
floor. It was Wallace Ross, Lester Brigham’s room-mate, who, as we said,
had been “gated” for thirty days for some violation of the rules.
Ross, who was now spending his second year at the academy, was much such
a fellow as Enoch said Lester Brigham was—he was all talk and no do.
Unfortunately the world is full of such boys. They make great
calculations concerning the future, tell big stories of the things they
intend to do at no distant day, and there they stop. They set their mark
high, but make no honest, persevering effort to attain to the object of
their desires, it being so much easier to think and plan than it is to
act.
Ross had entered the academy with the laudable determination of beating
every student there. He had assured his friends before he left home that
when they saw him again, they would see him wearing an officer’s
uniform. Not even a first sergeant’s warrant would satisfy him, for his
ambition was to carry a sword instead of a musket. He wanted to jump
from the ranks, over the heads of all the fellows above him, and land in
a captain’s place the first time trying. Don Gordon had proved that such
a thing could be done, for at the close of the last term he had
exchanged his musket and knapsack for the major’s shoulder-straps; but
then Don had worked for his promotion, and that was something Ross was
not willing to do. In less than a week after he signed the muster-roll,
he found that he had been wofully mistaken in the opinions he had formed
of the academy, and of the boys who belonged to it. The majority of them
were quite as smart as he was; and after he had been “hazed” a few times
at “setting up” by a corporal who thought he needed a little wholesome
discipline, and the fencing-master had railed at him in his broken
English because he did not pay more attention to business during the
hours that were devoted to the broadsword exercise, and some of the
other teachers had reported him for his failures in the recitation
room—after all these disagreeable things had happened to him, the boy’s
eyes were opened to the fact that the Bridgeport Military Academy was
not at all the school he had been looking for; but he could not get out
of it with his father’s consent, so he set himself to work to get
through the course with as little trouble as he could. Other boys openly
declared that that was what they intended to do, and they seemed to get
on quite as well as he did.
The lieutenant-colonel’s uniform was a very handsome one, and Wallace
Ross was not the only student who longed to wear it. When that official
appeared in full dress all eyes were fastened upon him—that is, all
except those belonging to a few disappointed aspirants. These generally
turned their backs and made disparaging remarks about the uniform and
the boy who wore it. Ross, who had given up all hope of wearing that
uniform, felt very bitter toward Colonel Mack.
“Just notice that squatty little jackanapes,” he would often say to
those around him, especially if they chanced to be boys of his own
stamp. “Don’t he cut a pretty figure in that dress? Just see him strut,
will you? I should judge by the airs he throws on that his father must
be worth as much as a dollar and a half.”
If Mack had told Ross and the other disappointed ones just how he felt
when he came out almost covered with gold lace, they would not have
believed him. Mack, to quote from his friends, was as “common as an old
shoe,” and he liked to be comfortable.
“See how everybody stares at me,” said he to his chum, one day. “I must
look like a scarecrow in these duds.”
“You don’t, either,” exclaimed Don, with some indignation in his tones.
“You look splendid.”
“Well,” replied Mack, with a sigh of resignation, “if they will give me
back my old blouse and my captain’s shoulder-straps, they can keep their
finery, or give it to some one who appreciates it more than I do.”
Wallace Ross cordially hated these two boys simply because they had
worked their way to the top of the ladder while he was still standing at
the foot. He was one of those who would have been glad to see them
disgraced before the whole school. That was something that could not be
brought about by any scheming or effort on his part; but he believed
that he could deeply wound Colonel Mack’s feelings, and through him
those of Don Gordon. The conversation he had just overheard had
suggested to him the way. After he had taken a few turns up and down the
hall, revolving the matter in his mind all the while, his eyebrows began
to relax, then a triumphant smile overspread his face, and finally he
threw back his head and laughed heartily. The sound startled him. He
looked hastily up and down the hall, and was greatly relieved to find
that there was no one in sight.
“It can be done,” said he, to himself, as he made his way to his room.
“I just know it can be done if there is any one in our crowd who has
brains enough to manage it, and if Lester is spoiling for a chance to
take those shoulder-straps down a peg or two, as he says he is, he can’t
refuse to attempt it.”
Ross did not belong to “our crowd” yet. In accordance with his promise
Lester had said a good word for him to Enoch and the rest, not
forgetting to mention the fact that Ross had money that the
superintendent knew nothing about, that he was quite willing to spend a
portion of it every chance he got, and Enoch had promised to remember
him. He did remember him too, every time he found his funds running low,
and on this particular afternoon he and Lester and a few chosen spirits
were down at Cony Ryan’s, filling up on pancakes which Enoch paid for
with the dollar he had borrowed of Ross that morning.
The latter went to his room full of his new idea, and walked up and down
the floor with his hands behind his back while he matured his plans. He
saw a thousand and one difficulties in his path, but he found a way to
surmount or get around every one of them, and when Lester came in he was
all ready to astonish him.
That night after supper the boys belonging to the first class, which was
to graduate at the end of the term, made their way toward their
recitation room; and when they were all assembled and the secretary had
called the roll, the door was locked to keep out intruders. It being the
regular business meeting several reports were submitted, but the one in
which the students were the most interested was the one presented by the
committee of arrangements, some of whose members had passed the day in
Hamilton. The chairman went more into details than he did while he was
warming his fingers in the hall, and when he ceased speaking and had
answered a few questions that were propounded to him by different
members of the class, the boys told one another that their banquet would
be talked of when some of those who sat down to it were forgotten. After
that the secretary was instructed to write to Mr. Taylor, the well-known
caterer, who had furnished all the big dinners for the military and
civic societies of Hamilton as long as Cony Ryan had sold pancakes and
maple syrup on the shores of the big pond, and to Mr. Colson, the
proprietor of Clarendon Hall, stating that the action of the committee
was approved by the class, and that if it were thought best to make any
changes in the programme, they would be duly informed of the fact. When
the motion had been acted upon, one of the students arose and said:
“It may not be amiss to inform the Chair that it has been handed down in
the archives of our venerable and time-honored institution that, in the
days gone by, certain members of the second class, prompted by the
spirit of discord, undertook to come roots on the graduating——”
“The Chair is unable to comprehend the gentleman’s language,”
interrupted the boy president, in a tone of rebuke.
“Mr. Chairman,” continued the student, “I beg to recall the words, and
to state, in all seriousness, a fact which the gentlemen present may not
know anything about. I have heard my uncle say that while he was a
member of this school, he and a few other boys in his company undertook
to see that the members of the graduating class had considerable trouble
in eating their dinner after they had provided it; and so well did they
perform their work, that it was more by good luck than good management
that the dinner was eaten at all. How my honored relative and his
fellow-conspirators accomplished this, I don’t know. To be candid, he
positively refused to enlighten me on that point, fearing, no doubt,
that I would at some time attempt a similar plot myself; but that, sir”
(here the eloquent speaker placed one hand under his coat-tails and
waved the other gracefully in the air), “is something I should scorn to
do.”
The interested listeners all laughed outright when they heard this. A
bigger spirit of mischief than Bob Walker (that was the student’s name)
could not have been found in Bridgeport. When he first entered the
academy he was in arrest nearly all the time, and everything that was
done in violation of the rules was laid to his charge. But that was all
over now, and Bob was the captain of his company.
“Now I don’t know, Mr. Chairman, that we are in danger of being
interfered with in any way,” continued Bob, becoming serious again, “but
Lester Brigham and Enoch Williams have opened our eyes to the fact that
they can throw the whole school into a turmoil if they set about it in
earnest, and it might be well to be on the safe side. Therefore I
suggest that the secretary be requested to incorporate in the
communications he has been instructed to write to Messrs. Taylor and
Colson a statement to the effect that if any changes are made in the
plan of arrangements, they will be duly notified by a committee, and not
by letter.”
Being requested to put his suggestion into the form of a motion it was
carried, together with several others that followed close upon the heels
of it, all having the same object in view, namely: to guard against
treachery and outside interference. When they got through, the sharpest
of the students couldn’t think of a single thing that had been omitted.
They seemed to have provided for every emergency.
There being no further business to transact, the meeting adjourned, and
shortly after the students had left the room, an orderly came in and put
out the lights. Presently there was a slight rustling under one of the
benches, and a couple of dark forms crept out into the aisle and groped
their way toward the door, which they opened just an inch or two, so
that they could reconnoiter the lower hall. There were several boys in
there, but they were gathered about the stove at the farther end, and
when the two spies—for such their stealthy movements proclaimed them to
be—thought they could do so without being observed, they stepped out
into the hall, closing the door softly behind them, and made their way
up the stairs toward their dormitories.
After this, for some unaccountable reason, affairs seemed to run with
unwonted smoothness. The lazy students and the shirks disappeared as if
by magic. The smart ones in Enoch’s crowd stood high in their deportment
and studies, and even the dull fellows, like Lester Brigham, astonished
their teachers by coming into the recitation rooms with perfect lessons.
It was a common saying among the boys that the faculty always grew
good-natured as class-day approached, and this state of things made them
smile all over. Many passes were granted for the 31st, and a few of the
students who lived in Hamilton, but who did not belong to the graduating
class, were granted permission to go home for the day. The passes that
were given to the others allowed them to go no farther than the village.
The boys in the graduating class had seen no reason for making any
changes in their programme, and consequently no special committee had
been sent to Hamilton; but immediately after breakfast on the morning of
the 31st, the three students who had thus far done all the work
devolving upon the committee of arrangements, presented themselves
before the president of the class to receive their final instructions.
They were dressed in their best uniforms, and in their valises they
carried their epaulets, body-belts, and a few other articles of ornament
which they could not wear under their overcoats. They were going to the
city. They wanted to make sure that Mr. Taylor had got the dinner up in
good shape, and that Mr. Colson had made use of the bunting they had
sent him to decorate Clarendon Hall in a manner befitting the occasion.
More than that, they were to provide for the reception of their class at
the railroad depot.
“See everybody yourselves, and take no one’s word for anything,” said
the president, earnestly. “Call on Mr. Taylor and inspect the dinner as
far as you can; then go up to the hall, give it a good looking over, and
if you see anything that don’t suit you, _make_ it suit you the first
thing you do. Be sure that the music is ready, and telegraph me as soon
as you can whether or not everything is all right, according to your
previous instructions.”
“Oh, we shall find everything all right,” said one of the committee,
confidently. “Don’t you worry about that. We were careful to tell those
men, in plain language, just what we wanted, and as they have
reputations to sustain, and know that they are going to get their own
price for their work, they will take as much interest in having the
affair go off smoothly as we do. Good-by. You will hear from us in about
two hours.”
The committee hurried out to catch the train, and the president went
back to his room to give his uniform another good looking over, and to
make sure that not the smallest particle of dust had settled on it
during his brief absence.
Class-day had always been observed as a sort of half-holiday, and this
one was no exception to the rule. There was a little studying done, and
the very small number of those who had failed in their recitations on
the previous day, were required to make up for it before they could
mingle with their companions in the halls and see what was going on. The
boys in the first class were excused from duty, and all they had to do
was to make themselves look pretty. At least that was what Colonel Mack
said.
“You will have all this to go through with next year, Gordon,” added
Mack. “Your class must make it a point to have an extra good dinner.”
“What concern is it of yours whether we do or not?” demanded Don.
“Why, I shall be one of the alumni then, and I expect to help eat it,”
was Mack’s reply.
“Wouldn’t it be becoming in you to wait until you get an invitation?”
asked Don.
“Oh, I’ll get _that_,” answered Mack, confidently.
“From whom, pray?”
“From you, of course.”
“No, sir,” said Don, emphatically.
“And why not? Is it because I don’t invite you to go to Hamilton with me
to-day? Can’t help it, my fine fellow. No student, unless he belongs to
the graduating class, can sit down to a dinner like this. That’s the
law. It is unwritten, but, like the common law of England, it’s
binding.”
“Well,” said Don, speaking seriously this time, “I certainly hope you
and the rest of the boys will see no end of pleasure. You have been
looking forward to this day for four long years, and I trust it will
pass away without the smallest incident to mar your enjoyment.”
“Thank you,” said Mack. “The same to your own class-day, when it
arrives. I do hope there will be no hitch in the programme; that is the
only thing I stand in fear of. It always puts me on nettles when these
formal things do not go off as they ought. I feel like sneaking out and
hiding myself. It would be just awful if anything should happen
to-night, for we have received favorable replies from about a hundred
and fifty invited guests—Come in,” he cried, in response to a knock at
the door.
“I’ll do it,” answered the cheery voice of the president, who entered
the room, carrying a brown envelope in his hand. “I feel better,” he
continued, as he helped himself to a seat on the sofa beside Don.
“Here’s a dispatch from Blake, and he says that everything is O. K. That
means that the dinner could not be improved, that the hall looks just as
it should, and that the band will be at the depot to meet us. Could
anything be more satisfactory?”
Colonel Mack and his chum thought not. The dinner was really a big
undertaking, there were many chances for unpleasant and even
disagreeable things to happen, and it was very gratifying to them to
receive the assurance from those who were on the ground that their plans
were working smoothly.