the country lad opened his mouth and began to sing in a droning,
drawling way:

"Yankee Dewdle came ter taown
'Long with Cap'n Goodwill,
An' there he saw the boys an' gals
As thick ez hasty poodin'."

"Louder!" commanded several voices.

So Ephraim repeated the stanza, singing still louder.

"Dot vos petter," complimented Hans; "bud id don'd peen loudt enough to
blease Lieudenant Cordan."

"Louder! louder!" ordered the yearlings. "Open your mouth and let the
sound out. You can never expect to sing if you pen the words up in
such a cavern as that."

This time Ephraim shouted the words at the tops of his lungs, and he
was complimented on all sides, while Barney Mulloy hastily said:

"Kape roight at it, an' kape on singing till ye're towld t' stop by me.
Ye know my voice, an' don't ye moind another thot spakes to yez. Av he
kapes bothering av ye, tell him to let ye alone, ur you'll kick th'
back-strap av his trousers clane out through th' top av his head.
Oi'll shtand by yez. Now, let her go again, an' kape at it."

The country boy began once more, and this time he bellowed the words so
they could be heard for a mile.

The grinning yearlings lost no time in slipping quietly away from that
locality, and taking positions at a distance, where they could watch
what followed.

All alone in the street in front of his tent stood the blindfolded
plebe, bellowing the words at the full capacity of his voice, and
repeating them over and over.

In a very few seconds Lieutenant Gordan, the regular army officer at
the academy, came marching briskly down the street in the dusk, his
face so red that it almost seemed to glow like a light. Stopping short
in front of the lone plebe, he called:

"Sir!"

Ephraim kept on with

"An' there he saw the boys an' gals
Ez thick ez hasty poodin'."

"Sir!" came sharply from the lieutenant.

Ephraim began the stanza over again, roaring it louder than before, if
possible:

"Yankee Dewdle came to taown
'Long with Cap'n Goodwin----"

"Sir!" cried Lieutenant Gordan.

"Git aout!" snorted the boy from Vermont. "I'm here ter sing, an' I'm
goin' ter fill ther bill, by gum!"

Then he began at the first of the stanza, and howled straight through
it, for all that the lieutenant spoke to him twice.

In the dusky shadows not far away the cadets were convulsed with
laughter they could not suppress.

"Sir!" thundered Lieutenant Gordan, "you are makin