Dinner had been waiting for fifteen minutes before Colonel Butler reached home, and, in the mild excitement attendant upon his return, Pen's injuries escaped notice. But, at the dinner-table, under the brightness of the hanging lamps, he could no longer conceal his condition. Aunt Millicent was the first to discover it. "Why, Pen!" she exclaimed, "what on earth has happened to you?" And Pen answered, frankly enough: "I've been in a snowball fight, Aunt Milly." "Well, I should say so!" she replied. "Your face is a perfect sight. Father, just look at Pen's face." Colonel Butler adjusted his eye-glasses deliberately, and looked as he was bidden to do. "Some rather severe contusions," he remarked. "A bit painful, Penfield?" "Not so very," replied Pen, "I washed 'em off and put on some Pond's extract, and some court-plaster, and I guess they'll be all right." The colonel was still looking at Pen's wounds, and smiling as he looked. "The nature of the injuries," he said, "indicates that the fighting must have been somewhat strenuous. But honorable scars, won on the field of battle, are something in which any man may take pardonable--" "Father Richard Butler!" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself! Pen, let this be the last snowball fight you indulge in while you live in this house. Do you hear me?" "Yes, Aunt Millicent. There won't be any more; not any more at all." "I should hope not," she replied; "with such a looking face as you've got." Colonel Butler was temporarily subdued. Only the merry twinkle in his eyes, and the smile that hovered about the corners of his mouth, still attested the satisfaction he was feeling in his grandson's military prowess. He could not, however, restrain his curiosity until the end of the meal, and, at the risk of evoking another rebuke from his daughter, he inquired of Pen: "A--Penfield, may I ask in which direction the tide of battle finally turned?" "I believe we licked 'em, grandfather," replied Pen. "We drove 'em into the school-house anyway." "Not, I presume, before some severe preliminary fighting had taken place?" "There you go again, father!" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. "It's nothing but 'fighting, fighting,' from morning to night. What kind of a man do you think Pen will grow up to be, with such training as this?" "A very useful, brave and patriotic citizen, I hope, my dear." "Fiddlesticks!" It was Aunt Millicent's favorite ejaculation. But the colonel did not refer to the battle again at the table. It was not until after he had retired to the library, and had taken up his favorite position, his back to the fire, his eyes resting on the silken banner in the hall, that he plied Pen with further questions. His daughter not being in the room he felt that he might safely resume the subject of the fight. "I would like a full report of the battle, Penfield," he said. "It appears to me that it is likely to go down as a most important event in the history of the school."