I withdrew my arm and faced them.

"If this means hazing," I said, "I'm not with you.

There's not enough men here to haze me, but there's enough to thrash me, and I'd rather be thrashed than hazed." You see, I wanted them to understand exactly how I looked at it, and they wouldn't think I was simply hotheaded and stubborn.

I was very cool about it all.

They broke in with all sorts of explanations; hazing was the last thing they had thought of.