CHAPTER VII.
IN addition to the corps laws, there are some corps-usages which have the force of laws.
Perhaps the president of a corps notices that one of the membership who is no longer an exempt,—that is a freshman,—has remained a sophomore some little time without volunteering to fight; some day, the president, instead of calling for volunteers, will appoint this sophomore to measure swords with a student of another corps; he is free to decline—everybody says so,—there is no compulsion. This is all true,—but I have not heard of any student who did decline. He would naturally rather retire from the corps than decline; to decline, and still remain in the corps would make him unpleasantly conspicuous, and properly so, since he knew, when he joined, that his main business, as a member, would be to fight. No, there is no law against declining,—except the law of custom, which is confessedly stronger than written law, everywhere.
The ten men whose duels I had witnessed did not go away when their hurts were dressed, as I had supposed they would, but came back, one after another, as soon as they were free of the surgeon, and mingled with the assemblage in the dueling room. The white-cap student who won the second fight witnessed the remaining three, and talked with us during the intermissions. He could not talk very well, because his opponent's sword had cut his under lip in two,
