"Among the soldiers, sir, in the garrison."
"Ah, yes, I've heard of your case. That'll do, sir."
Back in his room Pops found his three comrades in excited discussion. Something tremendous had happened. While Geordie, obedient to his orders, had gone to report to the cadet officer, Frazier, exulting in his knowledge of the Point, had persuaded Connell to trust himself to his guidance and go out for a walk. For half an hour after returning from supper the new cadets were allowed release from quarters, and permitted to visit each other and stroll about the grounds as they might see fit, but were cautioned not to venture over towards camp. The Graduating Class had now been gone, with the happy furlough men, an entire week. The rest of the corps, the new First and Third Classes, had marched into their summer quarters over across the cavalry plain, among the beautiful trees south of old Fort Clinton. The new cadets, still in the garb of civil life, were "herded together," as the old cadets expressed it, at the barracks, and thither the older cadets now were forbidden to go. Except in the mess-hall, three times a day, they were seen, therefore, only by their barrack instructors and their squad drill-masters. As a result of this plan the wholesale system of hazing, plaguing, and tormenting that prevailed at the Point some thirty years ago was wellnigh prevented. Not so, however, the impulse. Just so long as human nature remains as it is and has been since creation, "boys will be boys," and rare indeed are the boy-natures which know not the longing to play tricks upon new-comers, especially at school or college. Even among mature men the impulse lingers. Added, therefore, to the line of demarcation mentioned in the interest of discipline between the plebe and the upper-class man there ever exists the temptation to have sport at the expense of the new-comers, and only by most stringent measures has the spirit been controlled to the extent that it is.
So long as Geordie and his comrades kept to the neighborhood of the barracks, however, they were safe. A few of their number had been run up into the rooms of the yearlings the day before camp, where they were instantly surrounded by a frantic mob of young fellows mad with exultation at being at last released from plebehood, and eager to try on the new boys the experiments lavished on them a twelvemonth previous. The officer in charge caught sound of the affair, however, and made instant descent upon the division, only, of course, to find the suspected room deserted, and all the others crowded by old cadets, and the only faces that looked in the faintest degree conscious of guilt or wrong were those of the luckless plebes themselves, who, cautioned against entering the barracks of the elders, were nevertheless caught in the act, and could never explain any more than they could help their presence on dangerous and forbidden ground.