"Where did you learn to clean a rifle like this, sir?"
"Out West among the soldiers," was the brief reply.
The commandant, with Lieutenant Allen, came along at the moment to take a look at the first representatives of the new class for guard. As luck would have it, Graham and Connell were about the last of the ten, and were at the left of the squad. All looked neat and trim, and Mr. Merrick had made his selection with care; but the expert eye rarely fails to find something about one's initial appearance in uniform that betrays the plebe. The Colonel made no comment until he reached Connell. Then he turned to Mr. Allen.
"Very neat and soldierly, especially here on the left," he said.
Cadet Merrick, without a word, held up Graham's rifle. The Colonel took it, glanced quickly along the polished weapon, and then at Geordie, standing steadily at attention, with his blue eyes straight to the front.
"You must have seen service, sir," he said, with a smile. "That's a very handsome rifle," and handed it back.
"Who is that young gentleman?" asked he of Lieutenant Allen, as they turned away.
[Illustration: "THE COLONEL GLANCED QUICKLY ALONG THE POLISHED WEAPON"]
And then—alas for all McCrea's kindly advice! alas for all his own precautions!—our Geordie heard Mr. Allen's reply. It was meant to be for the Colonel alone. It reached, however, the strained and attentive ears of half the plebe contingent. His days of modest retirement were at an end; his time for plague, pestilence, and torment was come.
"That's Mr. Graham, Ralph McCrea's protégé. You've heard of him before, Colonel; that's 'Corporal Pops.'"
The instant the order "Break ranks!" was given, Benny Frazier rushed upon Geordie with delight almost too eager, and loudly hailed him as Corporal Pops. The pet name of his boy days had followed him to the Point.
It takes but little time for a boy to win a nickname in the corps of cadets, though a lifetime may not rid him of it. Physical peculiarities are turned to prompt account, and no account is taken of personal feelings. Certain fixed rules obtain as to the eldest and youngest of each class. They are respectively "Dad" and "Babe." Otherwise a young fellow becomes "Fatty" or "Skinny," "Whity" or "Cuffy," "Beauty" (if ugly), "Curly," or "Pinky," "Shanks" or "Legs," "Bones," etc., if in any way remarkable from an anatomical point of view; "Sissy," "Fanny," "Carrie," if rosy-cheeked and clear-skinned, whether otherwise effeminate or not. All these, more or less, depended upon physical charms or faults, and these are apt to be settled at the start. So, too, such titles as "Parson," "Deacon," "Squire." Others come in as lasting mementos of some unfortunate break in recitation or blunder in drill.