Then, all of a sudden, he brightened as the thought flashed through his mind: 

“If Prescott gets the ‘silence,’ even for a day, he’ll be so furious that he’ll do half a dozen fool things that I can provoke him into.  Then he’ll go so far, in his wrath, that the class will cut him for good and all, and he’ll buy his ticket home!”

The more Jordan thought this over, while he pretended to be listening to what his classmates were saying, the surer the cadet plotter felt that he could work his enemy out of the corps within the next week or so.

“Well, I dare say that you fellows are right in advising milder measures,” admitted Jordan at last.  “Of course, though I try not to let my personal feelings enter into this at all, yet I suppose I can’t keep my sense of outraged class dignity wholly untainted by my personal feelings.  Besides, the ‘silence’ for a week will doubtless cover all the needs of the case, and I don’t bear the fellow any personal grudge, or I try not to.”

“That’s a sensible, manly view, Jordan,” chimed in Brown, “and it does you credit as a gentleman and a man of honor.  Now, you know, it’s a fearful thing for a man who has reached the first class to have to drop his Army career at the last moment.  So we’ll try to bring the majority of the class around to the idea of the week’s ‘silence.’”

“Now, lest it appear as though I were actuated by personal motives,” continued Jordan, “I’ll have to stand back and let you fellows do the talking with the other men of the class.”

“That’s all right,” nodded Durville.  “We wholly understand the delicacy of your position, and we can attend to it all right.  Besides, all we have to do, anyway, is to ascertain how the class feels on the matter.”

“Don’t let it be lost sight of, though,” begged Jordan, almost betraying his over anxiety, “that it is a serious matter of class dignity and honor.”

“We won’t, old man,” promised Durville, as the visitors rose.

As soon as he was alone—–­for his tentmate was away on a cavalry drill, Jordan rose, his eyes flashing with triumph.

“Dick Prescott, I believe I have you where I want you!  What a rage you’ll be in, if you get the ‘silence’!  ’Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,’” Jordan went on, under his breath, wholly unaware that he had parodied the meaning of that famous quotation.  “You’ll rage with anger, Prescott.  You’ll do the very things that will warrant the class in giving you the long ‘cut.’”

The “silence” is a form of rebuke that the cadet corps, once in many years, administers to one of the many Army officers who are stationed over them.  When the cadet corps decides to give an officer the “silence,” the proceeding is a unique one.

Whenever an officer under this ban approaches a group of cadets they cease talking, and remain silent as long as he is near them.  They salute the officer; they make any official communications that may be required, and do so in a faultlessly respectful manner; they answer any questions addressed to them by the officer under ban.  But they will not talk, while he is within hearing, on anything except matters of duty.