Just as before, in a sudden whirl of fury, the youngster flew at him, landed both fists on the freckled "mug" before Briggs could either dodge or guard; bore him backward in the full force of the instant attack; the carroty head banged on the curb and knocked him stupid, and then the peace-makers really might have been less deliberate in pulling Shorty off. Briggs was a wreck when his raging assailant was dragged away, and Halsey, wild-eyed, came rushing out to stop the fray. "Prime, Prime!" he said, as he held him by the collar. "You've tried the rector's patience to the utmost this last week, and I fear this will end it all." "I don't care if it does!" panted Shorty. "I'd rather be killed than kept here any longer. I hope he _will_ expel me. Then perhaps they'll let me go where I belong!" And in a torrent of wrath the youngster's swelling heart burst over all bounds, and he was led sobbing away. Still dazed, half blind, and bleeding, Briggs was lifted to his feet. "It served you right, you hulking coward," said Joy, as he and Bertram led the battered object to the horse-trough in the stable. "You couldn't have insulted him more brutally." "It's of no use," said the Doctor that evening, gravely, to a gray-haired grandsire, who was himself burning with longing to go to the front. "That boy can't study now. You see he was regularly enlisted as a drummer. He fully believed that when his regiment was called out that nothing could keep him back, and, boy-like, he has said so among his fellows,--probably bragged of it a little. He who had been so boastfully confident now has to stay and face the sneers of the school, while big boys of eighteen and nineteen like Dix and Julian have gone with the Seventh. It breaks his heart, my friend. There's no likelihood of fighting just now. The rebels won't be fools enough to attack Washington. Send him down there to his uncle. Let him have a taste of camp life. The city troops will come home as soon as the volunteers begin to arrive. In fact, if you don't there'll be incessant war right here at school." "But there's his examination for college," said the head of the Primes, himself a don of Columbia. "Well, didn't you assure Dix and Julian that Columbia would admit them without examination whenever they knocked at the doors? Didn't you at faculty meeting say that three seniors, who never could have got their diplomas in the world, should have their degrees without further question, despite the fact that they have dragged along at the foot of their class for the last two years, all just because of the fact that they have gone to the front with their regiments?" "But then he's so small for his years," was the next objection. "All the better soldier! Those big, long giants break down. Those stocky little fellows are the stayers. Besides," says Pop, with a twinkle in his eyes, "size doesn't seem to count for much. You--ought to have seen Briggs."