no farther than was necessary to clear a good space for the use of a
little single-stick exercise.

Pretty was no boxer, but he was a firm believer in the value of a good
stout cane. Imagine his humiliation, then, when he found, in the first
place, that the crook of his stick had caught in his coat-pocket and
spoiled one good blow, and, in the second place, that the fine strong
slash he meant to deliver overhead like a broad-sword stroke merely
landed upon the upraised arm of the Senior, and had its whole force
broken. Pretty then had the bitter misery of seeing his good sword
wrenched from his hand and broken across the knee of the Senior, who
very magnificently told him that he must never appear on the campus
again with a walking-stick.

Pretty was overcome with embarrassment at the outcome of his innocent
foppery, and of his short, vain battle, and he was the laughing-stock
of the Seniors for a whole day. But, being of Lakerim mettle and
metal, he did not mean to let one defeat mean a final overthrow. He
told the rest of the Lakerimmers that he would carry a cane anyway,
and carry it anywhere he pleased, and that the next man who attempted
to take it from him would be likely to get "mussed up."

About this time he found a magazine article that told the proper sort
of cane to carry, and the proper way to use it in case of attack; and
he proceeded to read and profit.

Now, inasmuch as Sawed-Off was working his way through the Academy,
and paying his own expenses, without assistance except from what small
earnings he could make himself, it was only natural that he should
always be the one who always had a little money to lend to the other
fellows, though they had their funds from home. It was now Pretty who
came to him for the advance of cash enough to buy a walking-stick of
the following superb description: a thoroughly even, straight-grained
bit of hickory-wood, tapered like a billiard-cue, an inch and a half
thick at the butt and three fourths of an inch thick at the point, the
butt carrying a knob of silver, and the point heavily ferruled.

Pretty had managed to find such a stick in the small stores of
Lakerim. He bought it with Sawed-Off's money, and he practised his
exercises with it so vigorously and so secretly that when he next
appeared upon the campus and carried it, the Senior who had attacked
him before, let him go by without any hindrance. He was fairly
stupefied at the impudence of this Lakerimmer w