or held, so that Freddy alone had to face the
surprised people inside.

But the wildest of their tricks was one that they played on the cadets
at Woolwich--the big boys who were being trained to be officers of
artillery. "The Pussies" was the name they went by, and it was on the
most grown up of the Pussies that they directed their mischief. The
senior class of cadets was then stationed in the Royal Arsenal, in
front of which were earthworks on which they learned how to defend and
fortify places in time of war. All the ins and outs of these
earthworks were known to Charlie Gordon and his brothers. One dark
night, when a colonel was lecturing to the cadets, a crash as of a
fearful explosion was heard. The cadets, thinking that every pane of
glass in the lecture hall was broken, rushed out like bees from a hive.
They soon saw that the terrific noise had been made by round shot being
thrown at the windows, and well they knew that Charlie Gordon was sure
to be at the bottom of the trick. But the night was dark, and Charlie
knew every passage of the earthworks better than any big cadet there.
Although there were many big boys as hounds and only two little boys as
hares, the Gordons easily escaped from the angry cadets. For some time
afterwards they carefully kept away from the Arsenal, for they knew
that if the "Pussies" should catch them they need expect no mercy.

From Taunton Charlie went for one year to be coached for the army at a
school at Shooters Hill. From there, when he was not quite sixteen, he
passed into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.

As a cadet, Charlie Gordon was no more of a book-worm than he had been
as a schoolboy. There was no piece of mischief, no wild prank, that
that boy with the curly fair hair and merry blue eyes did not have a
share in. But if he fairly shared the fun, Charlie would sometimes
take more than his fair share of blame or punishment. He was never
afraid to own up, and he was always ready to bear his friends'
punishment as well as his own for scrapes they had got into together.
Of course he got into scrapes. There was never a boy that was full of
wild spirits who did not. But Charlie Gordon never got into a scrape
for any thoughtless mischief and naughtiness. He never did anything
mean, never anything that was not straight, and true, and honourable.

He had been at the Academy for some time, and had earned many
good-conduct badges, when complaint was made of the