on your head. Go to the
rear tentpole and stand on your head. You may brace your feet
against the pole. But remain on your head until we make sure
that all the conceit has run out of you!"

Mr. Briggs was still "crabbing it" over the floor. Every minute
the task became more irksome.

"Up with you, mister," Prescott admonished. "No self-respecting
crab, with an abundance of animal spirits, ever trails along the
ground like that."

After some two minutes of standing on his head Mr. Ellis fell over
sideways, his feet thudding.

"Up with you, sir," admonished Dick. "You are still so full of
egotism that it sways you like the walking beam of a steamboat.
Up with you, mister, and up you stay until there is no ballast
of conceit left in you."

Crab-crab-crab! Mr. Briggs continued to move sidewise and backward
over the tent flooring.

Mr. Ellis was growing frightfully red in the face. But Prescott,
from the remembrance of his own plebe days, knew to a dot how
long a healthy plebe could keep that inverted position without
serious injury. So the class president, sitting as judge in the
court of hazing, showed no mercy.

Some of the yearlings who stood outside peering in should have
kept a weather eye open for the approach of trouble from tac.
quarters. But, as the ordeals of both of the once frisky plebes
became more severe, the interest of those outside increased.

Crab-crab-crab! continued Mr. Briggs. It seemed to him as though
his belt-line weighed fully a ton, so hard was it to keep his
abdomen off the floor, resting solely on his hands and feet.

Mr. Ellis must have felt that conceit and he could never again
be friends, judging by the redness of his face and the straining
of his muscles.

An approaching step outside should have been heard by some of
the yearlings looking in through the doorway, but it wasn't.
Then, all in an instant, the step quickened, and Lieutenant
Topham, O.C. for the day, made for the tent door!

CHAPTER XI

LIEUTENANT TOPHAM FEELS QUEER

Yearling Kelton barely turned his head, but he caught sight of
the olive drab of the uniform of the Army officer within a few
feet.

Pretending not to have seen the officer, Cadet Kelton drew in
his breath with a sharp whistle. It was not loud, but it was
penetrating, and it carried the warning.

Swift as a flash Prescott caught upside-down Mr. Ellis, and fairly
rolled him out under the canvas edge at the back of the tent.