'll get in, of course, and perhaps you had better report tomorrow
forenoon."

Although Rodney could not see the use of reporting, seeing that there
was nothing to be done in camp, he promised to be on hand, and rode away
to call upon some of his friends in the village. He found, somewhat to
his relief, that there was not a single one among them who believed as
his father did that the South was sure to fail in her efforts to
dissolve the Union. They all thought as Rodney did--that the Northern
people belonged to an inferior race, that there was no fight in them,
and that the States having made the nation could unmake it whenever they
felt like it. He learned also, to his no small indignation, that his
father did not stand as high in the estimation of his neighbors as he
might have done if he had not expressed his opinions with so much
freedom. As he was about to leave the village for home just before dark,
he encountered an old acquaintance of his, Tom Randolph by name, who had
just returned from the camp.

"You're in, Rodney," said he, after he had given the Barrington boy a
very limp hand to shake. "To-morrow forenoon we're going to elect
officers and get down to business. Will you be up?"

Rodney replied that he would, and at the same time he wondered why it
was that Randolph treated him so coolly. They never had been friends.
They took a dislike to each other the first time they met, and the
oftener they were thrown together, the stronger that dislike seemed to
grow. They had always tried to treat each other with civility, but now
there was something in Randolph's way of talking and acting that Rodney
did not like.

"While you were up to camp to-day did any of the boys tell you that I am
a candidate for second lieutenant of the company?" continued Randolph.

"You?" exclaimed Rodney, in genuine astonishment.

"Yes, me," replied Randolph, mimicing Rodney's tone and look of
surprise. "And why haven't I as good a right as anybody, I should be
pleased to know?"

"I suppose there is no law to prevent you from running for office, but
you don't know the first thing about military matters. If the company
was in line this minute, and you were second lieutenant of it, you
couldn't go to your position unless somebody showed you where it was."

"Well, I can learn, can't I?" snapped Randolph. "You didn't know trail
arms from right-shoulder shift when you first joined the academy, did
you? The company ought to give me that