But no term or title is so calculated to convey with it so much of exasperation in the case of the plebe, strange as it may seem, as one which is exclusively military. Just why this should be so it is difficult to explain. The end and aim of West Point existence is the winning of a commission that opens the way to a series, perhaps, of military titles; yet let a plebe be saddled with some such appendage to his name, and all the explanations in the world cannot save him from misconception and annoyance.
From the time a new cadet is fairly in uniform and a member of the battalion, he has perhaps no higher ambition than that of being made a corporal at the end of his year of probation. It is indeed a case where "many are called but few chosen." Four out of five are doomed to disappointment, but the head of the class in scholarship stands not so high in cadet esteem as he who heads the list of officers. To be made senior corporal at the end of the first year, and, as such, acting sergeant-major, or first sergeant throughout camp, in the absence of the Second Class or furlough men, is to be the envied of almost every other yearling; but to have conferred upon one in his plebe camp by common consent the title of "Corporal" carries with it a weight of annoyance little appreciated outside of the gray battalion; and it was Geordie Graham's luck to begin his very first tour of guard duty with this luckless handle—that, too, coupled with the diminutive of "Pops."
Even as he paced up and down the shaded path of Number Three, he could hear the mischievous delight with which the old cadets pointed him out as the new corporal, and could not but hear the somewhat malicious allusions made by his own classmates, some of whom (for there is a heap of human nature in every plebe class that has to be hammered out of it in course of time) were not very sorry to see a cloud of worry gathering over the first of their number to win praise for soldierly excellence, and none were more ready—hard as it may be to say so—than his tent-mate Frazier.
Geordie swallowed it all in silence, vigilantly walking the post assigned him, paying strict attention to the instructions given him every few moments by the officers of the guard. Time and again, as a boy, he had played at walking post in front of the doctor's quarters, punctiliously saluting officers in the daytime, and sternly challenging after dark before being hustled off to bed. All this stood him in good stead now. He had studied the cool, professional way of the regulars on sentry duty, and looked far more at home on post this bright July day than any of his class-mates. Both Lieutenant Allen, who was officer in charge, and Cadet Captain Leonard, who was officer of the day, said, "Very well indeed, sir!" as he repeated the long list of his instructions.