Now the curtain rises on Flirtation rocks and trees; and a well made-up damsel passes across the stage and out of sight, followed presently by a cadet captain, who hurries along in her steps, peering anxiously from side to side. "She said she'd walk this way!" he murmurs perplexedly, as he too disappears. The steps die out, and a third-class corporal comes on the scene. He also scans the seats and the bushes as he hastens by. "Wonder if I'm late?" he questions. "She said she'd walk this way." Again the silence settles down, broken this time by the less evenly assured tread of a pleb. "Not long from home, but very far!" is written all over him. Plainly he is following up a very unwonted gleam of pleasure. "She said she'd walk this way!" he exclaims rather breathlessly as he dives in among the shadows. The scenes, by the way, are remarkably well painted by those busy amateur hands, and vary greatly from year to year. "A street in old Vienna" was especially good; and some of the World's Fair incidents pertaining thereto, laughable enough. But look at the clock upon the wall! and remember that this is Saturday night. The last joke has shaken the house, the last song died away; the gay company pours out of the old doors, and the Hundredth Night is over. XLIV PRESSING ON I work with fury and delight, because I must get on, and I do get on. --BARON BUNSEN. Morning by morning now the shortening roll of days makes part of the cadet breakfast. "Ninety-nine days to June!" "Ninety-eight days to June!" "Ninety-seven days to June!" And all listen, and every heart takes a lighter bound. Ask any man, from now on, what is the news, and the odds are that you will get for answer: "Ninety-six days to June!"--or forty-six, as the case may be. I had a note once from a cadet, dated: "Barracks. Sixty-four days to June!" But then he forgot to sign his name. That did not matter. * * * * * It is a strong pull, each man for himself, for the next three months; a sort of individual "tug of war." I think Magnus had never worked so hard in all the time he had been at West Point. Perhaps chemistry and wave motion had something to do with this, for our hero was no genius. Nothing but honest work carried him on. Higher thoughts than of rank lit up the musty pages, and made music for the dull company drills. Truly he was not unmindful of the charms of an engineer post for Cherry; but several born mathematicians stood between him and any hope of that. Yet all he _could_ do, he would. The honour of the Christian name, no less than Cherry's sweet life, was in his trust, to dim or to brighten; and no man should ever adorn the tale with the name of Charlemagne Kindred, when saying that religion spoiled men, and should be left to women and children. So Magnus had his own secret joy over every high mark. Never had he enjoyed "maxing it," as he did that winter, and never had he done it so often.