“Mr. Chairman!” shouted another voice over the hubbub.

“Mr. Mallory,” replied the chair.

“I move that Messrs. Holmes and Anstey be appointed a committee of two to go after Mr. Prescott and to bring him here—–­by force, if necessary.”

Amid a good deal of laughter this motion, too, was carried.  The two more than willing messengers departed on the run.

“Mr. Chairman!”

“Mr. Douglass.”

The class president rose, waving his right hand for utter silence.  Then, slowly and modestly, he said: 

“I have greatly enjoyed the honor of being president of this class.  But I can no longer take pride in holding this office, for, in common with the rest of you, I realize that I secured the honor through a misapprehension.  I therefore tender my resignation as president of the first class.”

“No, no, no!” shouted several.

“Thank you, gentlemen,” replied Douglass with feeling.  “I appreciate it all, but I feel that I have no longer any right to the presidency of the class, and I therefore resign it—–­renounce it!  Gentlemen, comrades, will you do me the favor of accepting my resignation at once?”

“On account of the form in which the request is put,” said Durville, as soon as he had secured the chair’s recognition, “I move that our president’s resignation be accepted in the same good faith in which it is offered.”

“Thank you, Durry, old man!” called Douglass in a low voice.

A seconder was promptly obtained.  Then Chairman Fullerton put the motion.  There were cries of “too bad,” but no dissenting votes.

In the meantime Greg and Anstey all but broke down a door in their effort to reach Dick quickly.

“Come on, old chap!” called Greg, pouncing upon his chum.  “It’s all off!  Savvy?  We have orders to drag you to class meeting, if force be necessary.  Come on the jump!”

“Won’t I, though?” cried Dick, seizing his fatigue cap and hurrying on his uniform overcoat.

A smaller mind might have insisted on taking slowly the request from the class that had unintentionally done him such an injustice.  But Cadet Prescott was made of broader, nobler stuff.  He realized that, without exception, the manly fellows in his class were heartily glad to do him justice, now that they knew how blameless he had been.  Dick was as anxious to meet his class as they were to reinstate him.

So he hurried along between the jubilant Holmes and Anstey.

The meeting had just quieted down again by the time that the three cadets entered the room.

But in an instant Halsey was on his feet, regardless of rules of parliamentary procedure.

“Give old ramrod the long corps yell!” he shouted.

With hardly the pause of a second it came, and never had it sounded sweeter, truer, grander than when some hundred powerful young throats sent forth the refrain: