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“I know what they are up to,” said Lester, who stood at the window watching Don and Bert as they rode away. “They have reasons for wishing to get on the right side of me. Somebody has probably told them that I am to have plenty of money to spend, and they intend that I shall spend some of it for their own benefit. I am going in for a shoulder-strap—I am not one to be satisfied with a sergeant’s warrant—and the first thing I shall do, after I get it, will be to take those stripes off Bert Gordon’s arms. He and his boot-black can’t order me around.”

This soliloquy will show that Lester had changed his mind in regard to the school at Bridgeport. He wanted to go there now. His father, who knew nothing about the academy beyond what Don and Bert had told him, and who judged it by the fashionable boarding-schools at which he had obtained the little knowledge he possessed, had neglected no opportunity to impress upon Lester’s mind the fact that a rich man’s son would not be allowed to remain long in the ranks, and that there was nothing to prevent him from winning and wearing an officer’s sword, if he would only use a little tact in pushing himself forward. After listening to such counsel as this, it was not at all likely that anything that Don and Bert could say would have any influence with him.