u're not out of here in a hurry I'll help you through
the back door."

Not until then did Bunny Hepburn realize that he was actually
discharged.

"Get out now," ordered the head waiter, looking as if he would be glad
of an opportunity to help the discharged one through the back door.

"Oh, all right. I'll git," snarled Bunny Hepburn, thrusting on his hat
and slouching out through the door. "But I'll get even with that cheap
Army officer in short order!"

Like some other inconsequential fellows of his class, Bunny was usually
a man of his word in matters of revenge.

CHAPTER III

ROWDY VERSUS REGULAR

After a pleasant evening Hal and Noll escorted their parents homeward at
somewhere around half-past ten o'clock.

Both young soldiers, however, were still so full of the day's news and
so wide awake that neither felt at all like turning in for sleep as yet.
So they met immediately afterward for a slow stroll through the streets
on this warm summer evening.

"Where shall we go?" asked Hal, as the chums met.

"I don't care," Noll answered. "One set of streets will do as well as
another."

"We'll take pains, anyway, to keep on the well-lighted streets," Hal
proposed smilingly. "It wouldn't do for two poor, lonely soldiers to go
into any of the darker quarters where danger may lurk."

"Tell you what we'll do then," offered Noll. "We'll get a policeman to
walk around with us and protect us from harm."

"Now let us have done with fooling for a little while, Noll. I remember
something that Prescott was telling me once."

"_Lieutenant_ Prescott," Terry interrupted quietly.

"Guess again, chum. You forget that we have been lieutenants
since--well, since four o'clock this afternoon. So I am within my rights
in simply calling him by his last name."

"True," admitted Noll. "I've been in the ranks so long that, somehow, it
seems hard to realize that I am suddenly an officer, and the equal of
any other second lieutenant in the Army."

"Prescott was telling me," went on Hal, "of a great friend he and Holmes
had at West Point. He was a young Virginian, Anstey by name. Now
Prescott and Holmes both feel as though they'd gladly give their left
hands for a chance to grip Anstey's paw; yet since leaving West Point
Prescott and Holmes have not laid eyes on Anstey--which brings me up to
the question: How are we going to feel if you and I are constantly
serving on different sides of the earth from each other?"

Lieu