g a fool of yourself!"

"Ef you don't shut up an' stop interruptin' me, I'll be gol darned ef I
don't kick you clean inter the middle uv next week! You ain't ther
feller that sot me ter singin', fer your voice is of a diffrunt color
than his. Naow you keep mum, ur I'll take this handkerchief off my
eyes, spit on my hands, an' sail right into you, by thunder!"

Then Ephraim began once more:

"Yankee Dewdle came to taown
'Long with----"

The exasperated lieutenant snatched the handkerchief from Ephraim's
eyes, almost bursting with rage.

"If you don't quit this howling, I'll lodge you in the guardhouse!" he
declared.

The boy came near smashing the lieutenant with his fist, and then,
seeing who it was, he gave a gasp and nearly fainted on the spot.

"Where's them fellers?" he murmured, looking around for his tormentors.
"By gum! they've slipped! I've bin fooled!"

After giving him some sharp advice, the lieutenant sent him into his
tent, and departed.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

AN OPEN INSULT.

The spirit of mischief seemed to break loose in the camp that night. A
dozen times were some of the plebes hauled out of bed and slid around
the streets enveloped in their own blankets, ridden on a tentpole, or
an old wheelbarrow, tossed in tent flies, or nearly smothered with
smoke that filled their tents from the burning of some vile-smelling
stuff.

Time after time was the guard turned out to capture the perpetrators of
these tricks, but still alarm followed alarm, and not one of the jokers
was captured.

Every inspection seemed to show the older cadets all in their beds and
sleeping with amazing soundness, considering the racket that was going
on.

Lieutenant Gordan was at his wits' end, for never had there been such
an outbreak in camp since his coming to Fardale, and he began to
believe there was something radically wrong about the system as
enforced at the academy.

The professors were driven from their tents and compelled to take
refuge in the academy in order to get any sleep, and they all felt like
resigning their positions and seeking occupations in other walks of
life.

At West Point such things were once possible, but the introduction of
long rows of gas lamps put an end to it by illuminating the camp so
that the pranks could not be performed without the greatest danger of
detection.

At Fardale the gas lamps were missing, and a dark night during the
first weeks of each yearly encampme