Joe Nelson, who was a quiet and studious cadet, hailing from Philadelphia. “And Andy Snow and Henry Lee are on it, too,” he went on. “I think——”

“Silence at the table!” broke in the rough voice of Josiah Crabtree. “If I hear any more of that, I’ll send you away without your supper!”

“Oh,” murmured Joe Nelson. It was rarely that he had any trouble with any of the teachers.

“Say, but old Crabtree is crusty enough to make pie of,” was Pepper’s whispered comment.

“Silence, I say!” thundered the first assistant. “I will have silence!” And he looked around the board so fiercely that hardly anybody dared to say another word.

At the next table sat Dan Baxter and Mumps, the sneak. The former scowled darkly at Jack and Andy, while the sneak put his tongue into his cheek at them.

“I’m going to fix Mumps,” whispered Pepper, who had been told of the occurrence in the school yard, and watching his chance, he leaned back in his chair and dropped a bit of sharp fish-bone down inside the sneak’s collar.

At first the sneak did not notice what had been done, but then he made a side turn and of a sudden uttered a yell of pain.

“Hi! who’s sticking me with a pin?” he roared. “Drop it!”

He glanced around, but the boys on both sides of him were busy with their eating.

“What is it, Master Fenwick?” questioned George Strong, the second assistant.

“Somebody stuck me with a——Oh, I’m stuck again! Oh! oh! Something is down my back!” And the sneak began to wiggle from side to side. “Oh, dear me!”

“You had better leave the room and find out what is the matter,” said the teacher, and still twisting and squirming, Mumps left the mess-hall in a hurry.

“Baxter, do you know anything of this?”

“No, sir.”

“It is strange; what could be the matter?”

There were a few minutes of silence, and then the sneak came back and dropped into his chair.

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