"
"Have you felt obliged to refuse them any information for which a
class committee had asked, Prescott?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let me do some hard thinking, my lad. Ah, now, as I look back
to the night when you were obliged to report Mr. Jordan for being
outside the guard lines, I had myself that night assigned you
to official duty near the guard lines. You were to intercept
plebes who might try to run the guard, and to send them back to
their tents."
"Yes, sir."
"That was special duty," resumed Lieutenant Denton. "Now, if you
had been asked, by a class committee, to explain how you happened
to be out there at the right time to catch Mr. Jordan, you would
have felt bound to refuse to reveal your orders from me?"
"I certainly would have felt so bound, Mr. Denton."
"Ah! Now I think I understand a good deal, Prescott. Then, at
another time, very recently, you forgot, until late, to turn in
an official report to me. You started to hurry over here, and,
in so doing, you must have accidentally encountered a certain
cadet returning in "cit." clothes. As his company commander,
you surely felt bound to report him for so flagrant a breach of
discipline. Yet, if your class did not fully understand or credit
the fact that only an oversight of yours had thrown you in that
cadet's way, it would make the class feel that you had deliberately
trapped the man, after having spied on his actions earlier in
the evening.
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