l forgive you this time, because I'm an easy-going fellow. If
it had been anybody else but me, you'd have got your first fight. What
is it? Out with it."

"Please, sir, when I was haz--I mean exercised the other night, I
saw somebody taking photographs of it. Do you think I could get
copies of them?"

"What do you want them for?" asked Smith suspiciously.

"I'd like to have something to remember it by," said Sam. "I want to be
able to show that I did just what Generals Gramp and German did."

Smith smiled. "All right," he replied. "I'll get them for you if I can,
and I'll expect you to work all the better for me. Now go."

"Oh, thank you, sir--thank you!" cried Sam; and he went.

That night he and Cleary talked over the situation in whispers as they
lay in their bunks.

"I don't like this business at all," said Cleary. "I didn't come
to East Point to black boots and make beds. It's a fraud, that's
what it is."

"Please don't say that," said Sam. "They've always done it,
haven't they?"

"I suppose so."

"Then it must be right. Do you think General Meriden would have done it
if it had been wrong? We must learn obedience, mustn't we? That's a
soldier's first duty. We must obey, and how could we learn to obey
better than by being regular servants?"

"And how about obeying the rules of the post that forbid the whole
business, hazing and all?" asked Cleary.

Sam was nonplussed for a moment.

"I'm not a good hand at logic," he said. "Perhaps you can argue me
down, but I _feel_ that it's all right. I wouldn't miss this special
duty business for anything. It will make me a better soldier and
officer."

"Sam," said Cleary, who had now got intimate enough with him to use his
Christian name,--"Sam, you were just built for this place, but I'll be
hanged if I was."

The summer hastened on to its close, and the first-and third-class men
had a continual round of social joys. The hotel on the post was full of
pretty girls who doted on uniforms, and there were hops, and balls,
and flirtations galore. The "beasts" of the fourth class were shut out
from this paradise, but they could not help seeing it, and Sam used his
eyes with the rest of them. He had never before seen even at a distance
such elegance and luxury. The young women especially, in their gay
summer gowns, drew his attention away sometimes even from military
affairs. There was a weak spot in his make-up of which he