for a gentleman."

"Did Colonel North let you get away with that?" demanded Lieutenant
Johnson.

"He did," confessed Algy, "for in his good old soldierly heart he knew
that I hadn't arrived at the dignity even of being a dub. Then I wired
my father and asked him to see the President and get my resignation
through at once. Instead, my father wired that he'd had me ordered to
the Service Schools at Fort Leavenworth; that I'd have to go there, work
like blazes and make good, or else that he'd disown me and make me work
for a living. I thought the Service Schools would be easier than working
for a living," added Algy reminiscently, "but from what I went through
at Leavenworth I'd advise any lazy man to go to work instead."

"It's tough at Leavenworth," assented Brisbane. "I put in a year there
once."

"I'm glad, now, that I went to Leavenworth," Algy continued. "I was
taught there that a soldier's life is about the finest going, if only a
fellow can buckle down to work and discipline, and forget that he has
any preferences of his own for anything."

"Leavenworth certainly made a good soldier of you, Ferrers," put in
Sears. "I don't know a harder-working officer than you are to-day."

"Thank you," came from Algy. "But that seems hard for you to believe,
doesn't it, Overton?"

"From the past, Ferrers, yes; but not from what I see of you now, or
from what I heard you saying as you came into the club."

"Why, Ferrers is called one of the worst grinds in the service," laughed
Lieutenant Hapgood. "Overton, I know it to be a fact that Algy Ferrers,
for the last year, has been returning all the remittances that his
father sent him. Algy simply wrote back that, by the time he had his
day's work done, he was too tired to go out and spend money."

"Well, why not?" challenged Algy. "A second lieutenant is paid seventeen
hundred dollars a year. To my way of thinking that's all an honest,
hard-working young fellow ought to be allowed to have."

"You can't keep many automobiles on that," smiled Noll.

"I don't have to," retorted Algy. "I haven't been in an auto, except
under orders, since I left Clowdry for Leavenworth."

A wonderful change had come about in the case of Algy Ferrers. Hal and
Noll felt like pinching themselves to see if they would wake up.

"Every younger officer, nowadays, has to put in two or three spells of
study at the Service Schools," continued Algy, turning to the two
newest members of the club. "It d