"Not especially. I have no personal complaint to make against the waiter, but I shall feel greatly obliged if you can send us a different man to wait on us."
"With pleasure," replied Mr. Ralston promptly. "But you will be doing me a genuine service, Mr. Overton, if you will tell me in what way the present waiter has offended you."
"He didn't offend me personally," Hal replied quietly, "but he spoke disrespectfully of the Flag I serve, and the uniform I am proud to wear."
"Thank you very much. Will you tell me what the waiter said?"
Hal repeated the words accurately.
"I will send you another waiter, Mr. Overton, and will see to it personally that you are not again annoyed. I thank you for having reported the matter to me."
Hal returned to his seat. Bunny had already vanished behind the swinging doors at the rear. Mr. Ralston followed him out into the cook's domain.
"Peterson, I want you to wait on Mr. Overton's party," called Mr. Ralston, whereat Bunny started slightly. "And, Peterson, I want you to serve and attend to their wants in your best style."
"Yes, sir," replied Peterson, an older waiter.
"Chef," continued the proprietor, "you will see to it that the delayed dinner for the Overton party is served ahead of anything else, and in your best style. Hepburn, come here!"
Bunny approached, a defiant scowl on his sulky face.
"Hepburn, I am told that you grossly insulted the Flag and the Army uniform."
"I didn't," retorted Bunny, "but I won't allow any of them tin-soldier dudes to put it over me."
"Your present language sufficiently justifies the charge made against you," replied Mr. Ralston quietly. "This restaurant is intended as a resort for ladies and gentlemen, and all right-minded persons respect our Army and Navy and those who serve their country."
"I'll tell you, right now, I hain't got any respect for them tin-soldiers," retorted Bunny defiantly.
"That will be all, Hepburn. Get out of here!"
With that the proprietor turned on his heel, leaving the cook's domain. Bunny was white with wrath. He tried to talk to some of the other employes present, but none of them paid any attention to him.
No effort did young Hepburn make to get his street clothes until the head waiter brought him back an envelope containing his wages.
"I'll remain here until I see you get out," remarked the head waiter coldly.
"You may wait a long time," sneered Bunny.
"No, I won't. If you're not out of here in a hurry I'll help you through the back door."
Not until then did Bunny Hepburn realize that he was actually discharged.
"Get out now," ordered the head waiter, looking as if he would be glad of an opportunity to help the discharged one through the back door.
"Oh, all right. I'll git," snarled Bunny Hepburn, thrusting on his hat and slouching out through the door. "But I'll get even with that cheap Army officer in short order!"
Like some other inconsequential fellows of his class, Bunny was usually a man of his word in matters of revenge.
CHAPTER III
ROWDY VERSUS REGULAR
AFTER a pleasant evening Hal and Noll escorted their parents homeward at somewhere around half-past ten o'clock.
Both young soldiers, however, were still so full of the day's news and so wide awake that neither felt at all like turning in for sleep as yet. So they met immediately afterward for a slow stroll through the streets on this warm summer evening.
"Where shall we go?" asked Hal, as the chums met.
"I don't care," Noll answered. "One set of streets will do as well as another."
"We'll take pains, anyway, to keep on the well-lighted streets," Hal proposed smilingly. "It wouldn't do for two poor, lonely soldiers to go into any of the darker quarters where danger may lurk."
"Tell you what we'll do then," offered Noll.
"We'll get a policeman to walk around with us and protect us from harm."
"Now let us have done with fooling for a little while, Noll. I remember something that Prescott was telling me once."
"Lieutenant Prescott," Terry interrupted quietly.
"Guess again, chum. You forget that we have been lieutenants since – well, since four o'clock this afternoon. So I am within my rights in simply calling him by his last name."
"True," admitted Noll. "I've been in the ranks so long that, somehow, it seems hard to realize that I am suddenly an officer, and the equal of any other second lieutenant in the Army."
"Prescott was telling me," went on Hal, "of a great friend he and Holmes had at West Point. He was a young Virginian, Anstey by name. Now Prescott and Holmes both feel as though they'd gladly give their left hands for a chance to grip Anstey's paw; yet since leaving West Point Prescott and Holmes have not laid eyes on Anstey – which brings me up to the question: How are we going to feel if you and I are constantly serving on different sides of the earth from each other?"
Lieutenant Noll Terry looked almost startled.
"By Jove, I hadn't thought of that," he muttered.
"I've been thinking of it," Hal rejoined. "Now, Noll, what is the matter with you and me drawing up a request, both signing it, asking that, if in accordance with military interests, we be assigned to the same regiment and battalion?"
"To whom should such a request go?"
"To the adjutant general of the Army, I imagine, since neither of us as yet belongs to any regiment or department."
"Won't the adjutant general put us down as the two original, very cheeky shave-tails?" wondered Noll.
"That's a chance we'll have to take. Though if we make what seems a perfectly proper request, and in a wholly respectful manner, I don't see how the adjutant general can find fault with two inexperienced young officers, even if our request be a rather unusual one."
"If you get up the paper I'll sign it with you," agreed Noll, without a moment's further hesitation.
"I'll prepare that paper the first thing in the morning," promised Hal. "Whew, but I wish we had even an inkling of what our first duty is to be."
"Anywhere in 'God's country'" (in Army parlance, 'God's country' means the United States), replied Noll. "I don't want to see the Philippines again inside of a year."
For longer than they realized the two chums strolled the streets, now grown very quiet as the hour was late for a small city. Indeed, the two new lieutenants paid little heed to their course. So, after a while, they reached the rougher parts of the town.
Bunny Hepburn, having gone away from the restaurant with his heart full of hate, had fallen in with a group of companions of his own sort. These young men had visited beer-gardens and other places of low repute. Bunny's companions were the human fruits of his father's peculiar teachings. For the most part these young fellows were "professional labor men" of the lowest type. None of them ever worked long or steadily at anything, except with their tongues. They were a gross libel on the real workingmen of the country – the steady, sober, industrious toilers who are the real backbone of the country.
Bunny's companions, instead, were of a sort who hang upon the words of such speakers and agitators as the elder Hepburn. While disliking industrial work, and resorting to it only when there was no other choice as against starvation, these young fellows were always on hand in times of strike or riot, ready for any violence and seldom hesitating at extortion or pillage when the chance presented itself.
"I tell you, fellows," Bunny proclaimed hoarsely, "I'm going to get square with that tin-soldier dude, Overton. I hear he's been made an officer in the Army to-day. He feels bigger than all outdoors! He made a kick that cost me the best job I ever had."
"Imagine