"
"Jordan, has the sun been affecting your head this forenoon?"
demanded Dick, with another keen look at his classmate.
"Well, you do act as though you thought yourself bigger than the
President," insisted Jordan sneeringly.
"I am a cadet, not yet capable of being a second lieutenant, in
the Army," Dick replied, regaining his coolness. "The President
is commander-in-chief of the combined Army and Navy."
"You are utterly puffed up with your own importance," cried Jordan
hotly, though in a discreetly low voice. "Prescott, you are-----"
Something in Jordan's eyes warned Dick that a vile insult was
coming in an instant.
"_Stop_!" commanded Prescott, shooting a look full of warning
at his classmate. "Jordan, don't say anything that will compel
me to knock you down in plain sight of the camp. It's years since
such a thing as that has happened at West Point!"
"Oh, you lordly brute!" sneered Jordan, his face alternately white
and aflame with unreasoning anger. "Prescott, you had it in for
me. That was why you reported me this morning. That was why
you put me in line for demerits and punishment tour walking.
You are bound to use your little, petty authority to humble and
humiliate me. I shall call you out for this!"
"If you do," shot back Dick, "I shall decline to fight you.
It would be against regulations and against all the traditions
of the corps for me to arbitrate, by a fight, the question of
whether I did right to report you.
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