Then the other visitor demanded:

"Do either of you fourth cla.s.s men intend to try to be ratey?"

"No, sir," replied Darrin promptly.

"Do you, mister?" turning to Dalzell.

"No, sir."

"Are you both a bit touge?" asked the youngster questioner.

"I hope not, sir," replied Dave.

"Do you feel that way, mister?"--looking at Dan.

"What way, sir?"

"Do you feel inclined to be touge, mister?"

"I'm willing to be anything that's agreeable, and not too much work, sir," replied Dan, grinning.

It is offensive for a fourth cla.s.s man to grin in the presence of an upper cla.s.s man.

Moreover, two other youngsters had just stepped into the room to watch proceedings.

"Mister," commanded the youngster whom Dan had answered, "wipe that grin off your face."

Dalzell drew out his handkerchief, making several elaborate pa.s.ses across his countenance with it.

"Touge!" growled his inquisitor.

"Very touge, indeed," a.s.sented the other three youngsters.

"Why did you bring out your handkerchief, mister?"

"Just obeying orders," replied Dan, with another grin.

"Wipe that grin off your face, sir!--no, not with your handkerchief!"

So Dalzell thrust the handkerchief away and applied his blouse sleeve to his face.

"Stop that, mister!

"Yes, sir," replied Dalzell meekly.

"Don't you know how to wipe a grin off your face?"

"I'm not sure, sir," Dan admitted.

"Mister, you are wholly touge! I'm not sure but that you're a ratey plebe as well."

Thereupon Youngster Quimby plunged into a scathing lecture on the subject of a plebe being either touge or ratey. At first Dan listened with a becoming air of respect. Before long, however, a huge grin began to illumine Dalzell's face.

"Wipe that grin off, mister!" commanded Mr. Quimby sternly.

"I--I simply can't!" gasped Dan, then began to roar with laughter.

"Why can't you?" insisted Quimby. "What's the matter?

"It's--it's your face!" choked Dan.

"My face?" repeated Quimby, reddening "What do you mean, sir?"

"I--I--it would be a shame to tell you!" sputtered Dalzell between spasms of laughter.

Truth to tell, Midshipman Quimby did look funny when he attempted to be over-stern. Quimby's face was one of his sensitive points, anyway. Yet it was not, strictly speaking, the face, but the look of precocious authority on that face which had sent Dan, with his keen sense of humor, off into spasms of laughter. But the youngster didn't propose to see the point.

"Mister," spoke Midshipman Quimby, with an added sternness of look that sent Dan off into another guffaw, "you have been guilty of insulting an upper cla.s.s man. Your offense has been so serious--so rank--that I won't accept an apology. You shall fight, mister!"

"When? Whom?" asked Dan, the big grin still on his face.

"_Me_, mister--and as soon as the thing can be pulled off."

"Oh, all right, sir," nodded Dalzell. "Any time you like, then, sir. I've been accustomed, before coming here, to getting most of my exercise out of fighting. But--pardon me, if I meet, I shall have to hit--pardon me--that face."

"Call this plebe out, Quimby, and trim him in good shape," urged one of the other youngsters present. "He's touge all the way through. He'll need tr.i.m.m.i.n.g."

"And he'll get it, too," wrathfully promised Midshipman Quimby, who was rated high as a fighter at the Naval Academy.

CHAPTER X

"JUST FOR EXERCISE"

"Now, then, mister, keep your eyes on my humorous face!"

It was the next evening, over behind the old government hospital.

Midshipman Quimby had just stepped forward, from the hands of his seconds, two men of the third cla.s.s.

"I can't keep my eyes away from that face, and my hands are aching to follow the same route, sir," grimaced Dalzell.

He, too, had just stepped forward from the preliminary care of Dave and of Rollins, for that latter fourth cla.s.s man was as anxious to see this fight as he had been the other one.

"Stop your talk, mister," commanded Midshipman Ferris, of the second cla.s.s, who was present to officiate as referee. "On the field you talk with your hands. Don't be touge all the time, or you'll soon have a long fight calendar."