snicker.

"Stop that laughing, Mr. Danvers!" commanded Corporal Brayton.

Greg, in trying to get the right position, had so exaggerated it that
now he found himself trembling from the strain of trying to
maintain that position.

"What ails you, Mr. Holmes!" demanded Brayton, with withering
scorn.

"I--I was trying to get the right position, sir," stammered Greg,
reddening.

"That isn't the position of even a respectable dromedary, Mr.
Holmes," rejoined the cadet corporal crisply.

Then he poured a storm of refined abuse upon Greg. It wasn't
intended entirely for Greg, but for the benefit of all the awkwardly
standing green candidates. Not a word in Brayton's remarks went
beyond the limits of strict military propriety, yet every word cut.

"My, but I'd like to fall out and give this fellow a licking!"
muttered Greg to himself.

"Mr. Holmes," observed Cadet Corporal Brayton dryly, "clenched
fists do not go with the position of the soldier. Let your hands fall
naturally at your sides, each little finger resting against the seam of
the trousers, or where you judge the seam to be."

Again the blood shot up to the roots of Greg's hair, suffusing his
face. But Mr. Brayton had already turned to another candidate
whom he found in a ludicrously bad position. After some minutes
of this attempt to instruct the candidates in the seemingly simple
matter of standing correctly, Brayton gave the welcome order to
rest.

By this time four other awkward squads were at the same work.

"I wish we had our uniforms," whispered Greg. "I'd feel better."

"I am glad I haven't a uniform yet," returned Dick in an equally
low voice. "I realize how like a fool I'd look in it when I don't even
know how to stand, let alone attempting to walk in a uniform. Just
look at the magnificent carriage of the man that's drilling us!"

"I'd like to hammer him until he needed a carriage to get anywhere
in," muttered Greg vengefully. "That corporal is a brute, without a
vestige of good breeding."

"Then, for a fellow without breeding, he certainly carries himself
like a king," retorted Dick. "At least, I don't believe any European
prince has half as fine a carriage as Mr. Brayton."

"I wonder if they're all as bad as this corporal," demanded Greg.
"Brayton is a tyrant in gray."

"Greg! Greg! Get a brace on yourself, old fellow," whispered Dick
warningly. "This is only the morning of the first day, and we have
before us months--years--of takin