“But Marston, I’m going to relieve the spleen that’s gathered in my system. As long as you’re under me you soldier as you never did before. I’ll show you no favors, but I’ll not pick on you until you slip. Then you’re going to get it right in the neck. Meanwhile, Marston, do you remember the day just before inspection when you dressed me down in front of the troops, and called me a nice, pretty name which cast certain aspersions on my ancestry?” He stood there and said nothing, but the ferocious gleam in his eyes said plenty. No doubt he had brooded for years after slipping back from the grade of major to that of sergeant. Some drop, I’ll say. “We’re quiet and alone, Marston. Temporarily I’m taking off these pretty little collar ornaments, and forgetting that I’m a looey in this man’s army. And I’m going to beat you half to death, ---- willing, as between man and man. And whoever wins, we’ll walk out of here and the past’ll be forgotten as long as you’re a soldier.” He hesitated briefly. “If I beat you up, Evans, I’ll pay through the nose for it. You’ve got all summer to pay me up for a fight, and you’ll do it. I can’t win.” “You button up your mouth, Marston,” I told him grimly. “Don’t judge me or any other man by your own standards. I don’t even want to kid myself by pretending that I could ride you all summer for personal reasons and then excuse myself by saying that you need discipline. I wouldn’t be that low, but that’s what you did. Get that shirt off, if you want to, and put up your hands. The personal representative of several thousand cadets whose lives you made miserable, including several dozen that you got kicked out entirely, is standing right in front of you.” “And is going to get the beating of his life!” bellowed Marston suddenly. * * * * * He tore off his O. D. shirt as if possessed. All the accumulated bitterness of the last couple of years, I imagine, added to the natural meanness in him, broke through the dam and turned him into a fighting fool. He weighed as much as I did, but I was a foot taller and my reach was many inches greater than his. As he came toward me joyfully he sent his powerful, stocky body at me like a cannon ball. I sidestepped, and got in a peach right to the button. It is not my intention to give a round-by-round story of the battle. I couldn’t. It was too fast and much too furious. We were fighting, remember, in a little tool-room, impeded by toolchests, and with rows of shelves around the walls filled with wrenches, cotter pins and all sorts of spare parts. I didn’t have room enough to dance around and keep him out of reach, and he took blow after blow in order to get into very close quarters.