"No, sir! I wouldn't think of it, not for a moment. The fellow's a coward, and he don't deserve the chance."  
And Cadet Corporal Jasper brought his fist down on the table with a bang.
 
"No, sir," he repeated. "I wouldn't think of it!"
 
"But he wants to fight!" exclaimed the other.
 
"Well, he had a chance once; why didn't he fight then? That's what I want to know, and that's what he won't tell us. And as far as I'm concerned Mallory shall lie in the bed he's made. I wouldn't honor him with another chance."
 
It was an afternoon late in June, and the two speakers were discussing some ice cream at "the Dutchwoman's" and waiting for the call to quarters before dress parade.
 
"If that fellow," continued Corporal Jasper, "had any reason on earth for getting up at midnight, dodging sentry and running out of barracks, to stay till reveille, except to avoid fighting you that morning, now, by jingo! I[Pg 82] want to know what it is! The class sent me to ask him, and he simply said he wouldn't tell, that's all. His bluff about wanting another chance won't work."
 
"Well, if we don't," protested Williams, the other man, a tall, finely-built fellow, "if we don't, he'll go right on getting fresh, won't he?"
 
"No, sir, he won't! We'll find a way to stop him. In the first place, he's been sent to Coventry. Not a man in the academy'll speak to him; he may not mind that for a while, but I think he won't brave it out very long. Just you watch and see."
 
"The only trouble with that," said Williams, "is that he's not cut by all the fellows. I've seen three of the plebes with him."
 
"What!" cried the other, in amazement. "Who?"
 
"Well, there's that fellow he seconded in the fight——"
 
"Texas, you mean?"
 
"Yes, Texas. Then that long-legged scarecrow Stanard was out walking with him this very day. And I saw that goose they call the Indian talking to him at dinner, and before the whole plebe class, too."
 
"Well, now, by jingo! they'll find it costs something to defy the corps!" exclaimed Jasper. "It's a prett............