"I'll tell you what it is," responded Harple, earnestly, "you'll get indolent and careless and everything else if you keep on in this way. You haven't been out of the grounds for a week; you haven't studied a lesson with vim for a fortnight; you haven't cared for three months whether school kept or not. I tell you, Bright, you've got to brace up. If you keep this thing going much longer, you'll wake up some day and find yourself--"
The speaker paused for an appropriate word; then snapping his thumb and forefinger high in the air in such a way as to indicate something being sent whirling into space, he continued, "eliminated. Now you know what that means."
"I haven't asked you for any advice, have I, Charley?" he said.
"No, but I propose to give you some, all the same," responded Harple, throwing his red-silk officer's sash across the foot of his bed, and seating himself astride the only other chair in the room. "I've had this thing on my mind for some time," he continued; "and to-day, when I saw you make such a fool of yourself with Belcher--pardon the expression--I concluded to let out on you.
"I can't conceive what you're thinking of, Bright! For a year and a half you were _the_ A No. 1 fellow in this school; but for four months, without any reasonable cause, you've stood still in your tracks. You've kept up with your classes because you couldn't help it; but you've sat and moped and growled till you're fossilized and moulded, and the moss is growing on you. To-day you woke up long enough to get into an undignified squabble with a private in the ranks, and now you're going to drop off to sleep again. Brace up, Bright! For goodness' sake, brace up, and don't let yourself go to the dogs this way!"
Brightly looked a little surprised at first, then slightly indignant, and then, with a forced air of weariness, he replied,--
"Don't worry about me, Charley. I feel fully competent to take care of myself." After a moment's pause, he continued with more vigor: "But I will be obeyed in the ranks. Belcher was obstinate and ugly. I lost all patience with him, and I went further than I ought; I admit that, but the circumstances were a sufficient excuse."
"No, they were not. They were aggravating; so much the more reason why you should hold your temper. You remember Colonel Silsbee warned us, when we were commissioned, to exercise patience as well as firmness, and to--"