"You will kick me down-stairs, will you? You try it if you want to get kicked out of the corps of cadets. I'm not to be abused by the likes of you."
And Pops, amazed at such language from a drummer to a cadet, even though Frazier had provoked it, was still more amazed at the sudden change that shot over his room-mate's quivering face. Geordie took the drum-boy by the shoulder and put him promptly out into the hall.
"You know better than to speak to a cadet in that way," he said, quietly, but sternly. "Go back to the guard-house." But the boy replied he had another message to deliver.
"I don't speak that way to any other gentleman in the corps," said he, "but I can't stand that fellow, neither can any of us, and you couldn't either if you knew what we know."
But here Geordie ordered silence, and telling the boy to go about his business and keep away from Frazier, he hurried down-stairs. At the office were the commandant and Lieutenant Allen, also the new cadet captain of Company B, their first sergeant of the previous year. Presently Winn and Crandal—Graham's class-mates—arrived, and the four cadets were called in. It was fifteen minutes thereafter when Geordie returned to his room, his heart beating high with pride and happiness. He had forgotten for the moment the episode of the drummer-boy. He went bounding up to the top flight, four steps to the jump, burst in at the door just as the orderly came backing out, stowing something in his pocket. Frazier, still pale and with a deep line between his gloomy eyes, nervously thrust some money between the leaves of a book. Geordie plainly saw it. "I told you not to return here," said he, sternly, to the boy.
"I called him in, Graham," interposed Frazier. "He—he had to apologize for his words, or—get into trouble."
But the look on the drummer's face was not that of dejection as he vanished, and Graham, without a word, began unpacking. Frazier lighted a cigarette and retired to his alcove. For fifteen minutes not a word was exchanged, then, as Graham opened the door, and loaded up with a bundle of bedding and clothing, Frazier spoke:
"Where are you going with that truck now? You've got to take it over to camp in the morning."
"I'm not going to camp," said Geordie, slowly—"at least, not now. And, Frazier," continued he, laying down his bundle, "I've not yet said one word to anybody but yourself about this. I've told you twice that our ways were so different that we did not get along as we should as tent or room mates, so if you want to take anybody else, do so. It'll be some time before I come into camp, and then I shall slip into any vacancy that there may be. To be perfectly frank, I cannot afford the demerit it costs me to live with you, and—I don't like cigarette smoke."