“Put down your things and put up your hands!” Pug Kennedy fairly issued the order to Bob as an officer might have done.

“Why should I?” asked the stout youth. “I haven’t finished my dinner.”

“Well, you’re not going to until I finish you. Come on! Put up your hands! I’m a scrapper, but I won’t hit any one with his hands full. Put ’em up, I say, or I’ll smash you in a minute!”

“Don’t you hit him!” called Ned, hastily arising from the opposite side of the table.

“Mind your own business!” ordered Pug.

“Take some one your size!” came a voice from the end of the hall.

“I’ll take you if you want me to!” snapped Pug.

He took a step nearer Bob, and the latter, in very self-defense, was about to set down his plate and cup, when Captain Trainer, who had a habit of unexpectedly dropping into the mess hall, entered the big room. He took in, at a glance, what was about to happen.

[133]

“Stop!” he cried in commanding tones. “What does this mean?”

“He spilled a lot of hot coffee down my back!” growled Pug, but he had lost some of his belligerency since the advent of his captain.

“I didn’t mean to,” explained Bob. “It was an accident, some one jostled me.”

“Very well,” said Captain Trainer. “That is equivalent to an apology, Kennedy, and I direct you to accept it as such.”

“I’m sure I’m sorry,” said Bob. “I really didn’t mean to.”

“All right,” half growled Pug. “If you do it again, though, I’ll punch you worse than I did before!” and he glared at Bob.

The captain, seeing that he had averted hostilities for the time being, thought it best to withdraw. Enlisted men, especially at meals, like to be free from restraint, and an officer, no matter how much he is liked by his command, is a sort of damper at times.

Pug squirmed and twisted, trying to wipe some of the coffee stains from the back of his coat and Bob went on to his place to finish his meal.

“There’ll be trouble with that fellow before we are through with him,” said Jerry to his chums in a low voice, as they went out of the mess hall, for a little rest before drill was resumed.

“He’s made trouble enough already,” said Bob.[134] “Though of course it is rather raw to have coffee spilled down your back. But I couldn’t help it.”

“Of course not,” agreed Jerry. “But what I meant was that we’ll have personal trouble with him. He seems always spoiling for a fight, and more so when we are concerned than any one else. Maybe he doesn’t like being in the same squad with us.”

“He can’t dislike it any more than we do,” suggested Ned. “Just wait until I get made a corporal and have charge! Then I’ll make him step around.”

“Oh, are you going to get promoted to a corporal?” asked Jerry. “I didn’t know that was on the bill,” and he winked at Bob.

“Sure I’m going to be promoted,” went on Ned. “Aren’t you working for that?”

And Jerry and Bob had to admit that they were, though it was rather early in the game to expect anything.

The first step upward from private, the lowest army rank, is to be made a corporal, and, after that one becomes a sergeant. A corporal wears two V-shaped stripes, on his sleeves. The V in each case is inverted. A sergeant has three such stripes. There are various sorts of sergeants—duty or line sergeants, staff and major sergeants, mess sergeants, supply sergeants and so on. The[135] first sergeant is often called “Top,” and sometimes considers himself almost a commissioned officer.

Sergeants and corporals are non-commissioned officers, and there is a great difference in rank between a commissioned and a non-commissioned man.

A commissioned officer can resign, and quit when he wants to, but an enlisted man, or a non-commissioned officer can not. Commissioned officers are appointed by the President, and the commission carries a certain rank, beginning with second lieutenant. Each step upward means a new commission. The sergeants and corporals are appointed, nominally, by the colonel of their regiment, by warrant.

“Well, then Pug had better look out for himself, if you’re going to have it in for him when you’re made corporal,” went on Jerry. “But say, it must be fun to be an officer—even a non-commissioned one.”

“It is,” agreed Ned. “You get out of a lot of work that isn’t any fun, such as being the kitchen police, doing fatigue work like cleaning up the barracks and grounds, digging drains and the like, and when you’re on guard you don’t have to keep on the go—all you have to do is to keep watch over the other sentries.”

“Fine and dandy!” exclaimed Bob.

“Me for it!” added Jerry.

[136]

“But that isn’t getting us anywhere just now,” said Ned. “I’m detailed for kitchen police this very day.”

“So’m I,” admitted Bob, and, as it happened, Jerry was, too.

When one is detailed to the kitchen police it does not mean that the young soldier has to arrest those who eat too much, or too little.

In an army camp the cooking is done, in most instances, by soldiers detailed for it, though in some cases professional cooks may be used, such having enlisted or been drafted. Each day certain members of the company are named to help the cooks, of which there are usually three. The help............