“Heavens, Gibs!  What has happened?”

“Joe Locke—­Joe Locke—­” gasped “Gibs.”

“Well, what of Joe Locke?  Speak man!”

“He won’t report me any more.  I’ve killed him!”

“Pshaw!” exclaimed “the Bard,” in disgust.  “This is another of your practical jokes, and you know it.”

“I thought you would say that, so I cut off his head and brought it along.  Here it is!”

With that he quickly opened the door and picked up the gander and, whirling it around his head, dashed it violently at the one candle which was thus knocked over and extinguished, leaving the room in darkness but for a few smouldering embers on the hearth, and with the gruesome addition to the company of what two of those present believed to be the severed head of Lieutenant Locke.

The visitor with one bound was out of the room through the window, and made good his escape to his own quarters in North Barracks, where he spread the astounding news that “Gibs” had murdered Joe Locke; it was certainly so, for his head was then in Number 28, South Barracks.

“Old P.” nearly frozen with fright, did not move from his place, and it was with some difficulty that “the Bard” and “Gibs” brought him back to a normal condition and induced him to assist in preparing the fowl which had played the part of Joe Locke’s head, in the little comedy, for the belated feast—­which was merrily partaken of, but without the guest of honor.

* * * * *

Edgar Poe had entered West Point in July, but hardly had its doors closed behind him when his optimism gave place to wretchedness and he began to feel that his appointment was a mistake.  He had taken a fine stand in his classes, but he recognized at once a state of things most unpleasant for him for which he had not been prepared.  As in his schooldays in Richmond and at the University, a number of the boys had withheld their intimacy from him on account of caste feeling, so now at West Point he found history repeating itself, but with a difference.  In Richmond and at the University it had been as the child of the stage and as a dependent upon charity, that the line was drawn against him.  With the aristocratic cadets, it was because of his promotion from the ranks.  Yet the very experience which brought their contempt upon him gave him a sense of superiority that made their manner toward him the harder to bear, and drilling with green boys after having been two years a soldier, he found most irksome.

While the snubbing to which he was subjected was general enough to make his situation extremely unpleasant, however, it was by no means unanimous.  “Gibs” and “Old P.” his convivial room-mates in Number 28, took him to their hearts at once, and he really liked them when he was in the mood for companions of their type, but they wore cruelly upon his nerves when the divine fire within him was burning.  So indeed would any room-mates, for at home always, and most of the time at the University, one of his chief comforts had been his own room where he could shut out all the world and be alone with his dreams.