“This is awful!” cried Coulter. “Why, what in the world is the matter with it?”
“Say, Ferris, what did you do to that coffee?” demanded Ritter, striding up to the cadet who had made the beverage.
“I boiled it, that’s all,” answered Ferris. “It’s good, too,” he added.
“Did you put in some baking powder?” sneered Baxter.
“Not at all,” and now Ferris himself tasted some of the coffee he had in his pot. “Why, that’s fine.”
“Give me another cup of it,” said Baxter.
It certainly looked good and he put in some milk. Then he added the sugar as before. At once the coffee bubbled and foamed worse than before.
“Look there!” he cried, rushing forward with the coffee running over the cup and on to the ground. “What do you say to that?”
“Hullo, Baxter has got Mount Vesuvius brand of coffee!” cried Andy.
“Why don’t you bottle it for mineral water?” asked Pepper.
“I think I’ll try some milk,” said Mumps. “Phew, what a flavor!”
To sweeten it he put in some sugar, and at once he had the milk boiling and foaming.
“This is what’s the matter!” cried Reff Ritter. “It’s the milk and sugar that is doctored. Somebody put seidlitz powders in them!”
“Dump the sugar and milk away,” said the bully, and this was done. Then the crowd had to get a new lot before they could go ahead with their meal. Pepper and his chums had a hearty laugh over the incident.
That night, when Pepper was on guard duty, he took his package of firecrackers with him and during his spare time fixed some of the crackers so that they would have extra long stems, made of nothing but ordinary cotton cord. Then, when he was off duty, he placed the firecrackers around the camp, lighting each fuse as he did so.
“Now wait, and you’ll see some fun,” he whispered to Andy, Dale, and the others.
For a few minutes there was silence, and then one of the crackers went off. It was of good size and the noise sounded like a gun shot.
“What post?” was the question asked by the corporal, as he rushed out of his tent.
He had scarcely spoken when another firecracker went off with a loud bang.
“Something must surely be wrong,” murmured Captain Putnam, as he sprang up and donned part of his clothing. “There goes another shot!”
He ran outside and soon found the bewildered corporal of the guard, who was running around asking the various pickets who had fired the shots.