That is but a sample of what they got, not only from the Juniors and Seniors, but even from their own classmates. It had been a joy, in the morning, to drop their suit-cases on the grass, and yell at their old friends of the year before, but by afternoon, they felt like keeping to their rooms. It looked as if they were going to have a horrible year, as if everything they said or did would be laughed at, as coming from “the aviators.” They wished, for a while, that they had never seen an aeroplane. Poodle tried to convince Hike and himself that it was all nonsense for two persons who had just been playing with tetrahedral-flights and generals and million-dollar Army appropriations, to be bothered by a few laughs from classmates. But they were bothered, just the same. There is something about school honors that make them mean more than anything else. A fellow has been working for them ever since the day he got out of the kindergarten and put on knickers. Perhaps that’s the reason. Anyway, Hike and Poodle, after having played the game hard all Freshman year, and having made good, were broken-hearted at starting in the Sophomore year queered. “Queered” they seemed to be. Every one was ready to “jolly” them. Partly, it was envy and jealousy on the part of the fellows; partly it was a feeling that these two Sophomores had broken every unwritten law of the school by making themselves so conspicuous in the newspapers. But mostly it was the joy of being able to torment such famous people. Never was a West Point plebe so badly hazed as was the late General Frederick Dent Grant, when he entered the Point as the son of General Ulysses Grant, President of the United States. Hike and Poodle remembered that they, too, had taken delight in “kidding” a classmate of theirs who was the son of the Governor of Nevada—just because he was the son of a governor. Probably Plebe Grant and the son of the Governor would gladly have traded their positions as the sons of great men for good reputations with their classes. So it was with Hike and Poodle. The problem before them, they decided, as they entered their room, was twice as hard as fighting any old P. J. Jolls. They had to win over the school. The room was filled with memories of Freshman year—Hike had come back to it after helping win the Freshman game with San Dinero; Poodle had here written his poems for the school magazine; here they had “ground” for the spring examinations. Hike’s football-helmet hung over the fireplace—where, in the chilly California evenings, they had had many a good fire, with classmates singing and talking. Sitting on the broad window-seat, they could look across the silver stretch of the Carquinez Straits to purple Mount Diablo. Here they had lounged so many lazy afternoons, with friends, planning walking-trips across to the mountain. But now—?