"No indeed. But I have been through Chattanooga, and Fair Oaks, and a few other places, and so I know what all this play-soldiering may come to." Magnus stopped short and gazed at him. "Chattanooga! Fair Oaks! You have been _there_?" he said. "Why, yes," said Mr. Wayne, pulling him round again, "and I'm glad I am not there now. Come on; we must catch our train. Never mind all that to-day. So you thought you would be your own master till you got shoulder-straps, hey? Not a bit of it. You belong to Uncle Sam just as much in grey as you ever will in blue." "Body and soul!" said Magnus with a rather unmirthful laugh. "Not soul," said Mr. Wayne. "The only power that traffics in souls is the devil, and his vice-gerent the World. But about everything else, from the minute you enter West Point, you are under orders--sworn in to obey. How are you going to bring yourself up to that point?" "Why, I have always been taught to obey, at home," said Magnus. "Yes, and when you didn't do it, it was always, 'Oh, Magnus must have forgotten. He never _means_ to disobey.'" "How do you know, sir?" said the boy, laughing and colouring, too. "I have had a mother," said Mr. Wayne. "And if there is anything on this earth at the antipodes of the being that owns that blessed name, it is a West Point tactical officer." "Who is he?" said Magnus. "The tactical officer? Oh, he is one of a small force in blue, specially detailed to look after the cadets in grey." "They must be the ones that our Congressman says come round to see if you've washed your face," said Magnus. "They'd better not try that on me!" Mr. Wayne laughed a little. "Well, I'd be ready for them," he said. "Fighting for rights that you haven't got does not pay at West Point." "Why, what sort of a queer place is it?" said young Charlemagne with growing distaste. "It is a place where you are under orders," said Mr. Wayne, "and that often makes wild work with one's own private notions. You swear to obey orders when you go in, and you are under them till you come out. From the time you get up till the time you go to bed,--and after." "Not while I am asleep, I suppose," said the boy with an expressive lift of the brows. "Yes you are. If you fail to hear the reveille gun, your being asleep will not excuse you. It is your business to wake up. Nobody will come round and tap softly at your door and say, 'Now, Magnus, dear, if you are not _too_ tired, I think you had better get up.'" It was so exactly what his mother had said but four days ago that the boy's eyes flushed, and his throat choked up. "What will they do to me?" he said, making a brave fight for his self-control, "if I do not hear the gun?" "Oh, you will figure in the report as a 'late,' or an 'absent,' with corresponding small penalties, that is all. Nothing very terrible if it comes but once, but piling up trouble if it comes often." "They might call a fellow," said Magnus, who never liked to do that kind office for himself.