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“And yet–wouldn’t it be lovely?–To think of seeing you there!–are you sure there’d be no danger?”

“Be on the north piazza about quarter of eleven,” is the prompt reply. “I’ll wear a dark suit, eye-glass, brown moustache, etc. Call me Mr. Freeman while strangers are around. There goes the parade drum. Au revoir!” and he darts away. Cadet Captain Stanley, inspecting his company a few moments later, stops in front and gravely rebukes him,–

“You are not properly shaved, McKay.”

“I shaved this morning,” is the somewhat sullen reply, while an angry flush shoots up towards the blue eyes.

“No razor has touched your upper lip, however, and I expect the class to observe regulations in this company, demerit or no demerit,” is the firm, quiet answer, and the young captain passes on to the next man. McKay grits his teeth.

“Only a week more of it, thank God!” he mutters, when sure that Stanley is beyond ear-shot.

Three hours more and “taps” is sounded. All along the brilliant facade of barracks there is sudden and simultaneous “dousing of the glim” and a rush of the cadets to their narrow nests. There is a minute of banging doors and hurrying footsteps, and gruff queries of “All in?” as the cadet officers flit from room to room in each division to see that lights are out and every man in bed. Then forth they come from every hall-way; tripping lightly down the stone steps and converging on the guard-house, where stand at the door-way the dark forms of the officer in charge and the cadet officer of the day. Each in turn halts, salutes, and makes his precise report; and when the last subdivision is reported, the executive officer is assured that the battalion of cadets is present in barracks, and at the moment of inspection at least, in bed. Presumably, they remain so.

Two minutes after inspection, however, Mr. McKay is out of bed again and fumbling about in his alcove. His room-mate sleepily inquires from beyond the partition what he wants in the dark, but is too long accustomed to his vagaries to expect definite information. When Mr. McKay slips softly out into the hall, after careful reconnaissance of the guard-house windows, his chum is soundly asleep and dreaming of no worse freak on Billy’s part than a raid around barracks.

It is so near graduation that the rules are relaxed, and in every first classman’s room the tailor’s handiwork is hanging among the gray uniforms. It is a dark suit of this civilian dress that Billy dons as he emerges from the blankets. A natty Derby is perched upon his curly pate, and a monocle hangs by its string. But he cannot light his gas and arrange the soft brown moustache with which he proposes to decorate his upper lip. He must run into Stanley’s,–the “tower” room, at the north end of his hall.

Phil looks up from the copy of “Military Law” which he is diligently studying. As “inspector of subdivision,” his light is burned until eleven.

“You do make an uncommonly swell young cit, Billy,” he says, pleasantly. “Doesn’t he, Mack?” he continues, appealing to his room-mate, who, lying flat on his back with his head towards the light and a pair of muscular legs in white trousers displayed on top of a pile of blankets, is striving to make out the vacancies in a recent Army Register. “Mack” rolls over and lazily expresses his approval.

“I’d do pretty well if I had my moustache out; I meant to get the start of you fellows, but you’re so meanly jealous, you blocked the game, Stan.”

All the rancor is gone now. He well knows that Stanley was right.

“Sorry to have had to ‘row’ you about that, Billy,” says the captain, gently. “You know I can’t let one man go and not a dozen others.”

“Oh, hang it all! What’s the difference when time’s so nearly up?” responds McKay, as he goes over to the little wood-framed mirror that stands on the iron mantel. “Here’s a substitute, though! How’s this for a moustache?” he asks, as he turns and faces them. Then he starts for the door. Almost in an instant Stanley is up and after him. Just at the head of the iron stairs he hails and halts him.