But what appetites they had! How dreamless were their hours of sleep! How vigorous and healthful the days of martial exercise! Squad drills were all finished now. Fully uniformed and equipped, the whole plebe class was in the battalion. A "live" superintendent was watching every detail of their doings. The system of responsibility among the officers, both graduates and cadets, was such that no disturbance of any account occurred by night, no hazing of a harmful nature by day. The roar of the morning gun and the rattle and bang of the drums brought Pops from his blanket with a bound. He was always one of the first to appear in front of his tent, sousing head and chest and arms in cool water, then rubbing the hard skin red before dressing for roll-call. Benny, on the other hand, self-indulgent and procrastinating, copying after the old cadets, thought it more professional to lie abed three minutes longer, and then come flying out at the last minute, frequently to be reported late at reveille, and demerited accordingly. So, too, in many another matter. Howsoever excellent he may have appeared on parade in command of the High-school Cadets, Benny was no model on drill as a high private. His wits, too, had a way of going wool-gathering, and while young men like Geordie and Connell paid strict attention to business and rarely received reports of any kind, the "Major-General" was in perpetual hot-water, and ever ready to lay the blame on somebody else. One thing he could do to perfection—that was make explanations. He wrote a beautiful hand. He was plausible, pleading, and successful. He was as full of excuse as an Irish laundress.
"He's got more reports on the delinquency books than any one in the class," said Pops, reproachfully.
"Yes," said Connell, whimsically, "and more of 'em off."
No cadet can expect to get along without ever receiving reports. Any boy who so desires can readily obtain reports aggregating one hundred demerit in a single day; yet if he receive that many in six months, out he goes into the world again, discharged for failure in discipline. The breaches of regulation in the power of a boy to commit are simply myriad. Only by determination to conform to rules in the first place and eternal vigilance in the second can he live without demerit. Even then the faintest slip—a loose button, shoestring, drawer-string, a speck of dust, a tarnished belt-plate, an instant's mooning on drill or parade—renders him liable. To utterly avoid report one has to be all eyes, ears, and attention.