The major was ready to act. The vote of the stockholders was to be carried out in substance. A free train to Grass Spring was to be run at one o’clock; and, at the invitation of the president, a supper was to be served at the hotel after the meeting. This course would conciliate the refractory stockholders, and save the present directors from the accident of being turned out of office. Tommy seemed to be of the opinion that the stockholders ought to be compelled to vote for him, rather than coaxed into it; but he yielded to the superior experience of his father, and consented to feast the electors. He was instructed to invite all the students to the supper, and to have it specially understood that it was his entertainment, not the company’s. There was yet another question to be settled by the students, but not in their capacity as stockholders. The military department of the Institute was still maintained, in spite of the novelty of the railroad. The boys were organized as a battalion of two companies, and it is hardly necessary to say that Tommy was the major. It was the custom of the Institute to camp out for a week during what was called the home vacation, because the students did _not_ generally go home during this period. The stockholders’ meeting was held on the Saturday preceding this vacation, and it was necessary to determine where and when the camp should be formed, for this question was left to the students. It was proposed to hold the meeting after the stockholders adjourned, when the major would call the battalion to order. It was possible, if not probable, that the camping out would be dispensed with the present year, for the new locomotive and cars had just arrived, and were lodged in the houses erected for them. The major had instructed me--or rather the board of directors had done so--to run the new engine on Monday. It was thought that the students would not be inclined to camp out with this new excitement in store for them. The road was in order as far as Grass Springs, and in a few weeks it would be completed to Ucayga. I ran regular trips to the former place, every two hours, on the dummy, which was now so degraded by contrast with the locomotive, that it was of small account. But the students did not seem to feel that degree of interest in the new order of things which had been expected. They were excited when the locomotive and cars arrived; shouted, yelled, and screamed till they were hoarse; but the fact that the engine was not to be used as a plaything by any one who desired to do so, operated as a damper upon the boys. Perhaps Tommy, more than any one else, was responsible for this state of things; for his domineering spirit had disgusted his fellow-students.