"That's just like Darrin, Miss Meade," laughed Farley. "He's always a monopolist at heart. Though in this instance I am far from wondering at his desire to be."

It was the first hop after the semi-annual exams. A host of fourth cla.s.smen and some from the upper cla.s.ses had been dropped immediately after the examinations, but Dave and Dan and all their more intimate friends in the brigade had pulled through. Darrin and Dalzell had come out of the ordeal with the highest markings they had yet achieved at the Naval Academy.

Mrs. Meade had come down to Annapolis to chaperon Belle and Laura, but this evening Mrs. Meade was chatting with a middle-aged Naval officer and so did not see much of the young people.

As the music struck up, Farley and Page claimed consideration, Dave and Dan were left without partners.

"Nothing more doing for two dances, David, little giant," murmured Midshipman Dalzell. "Suppose we slip into our overcoats and walk around outside."

"I'd rather," a.s.sented Darrin. "It's dull in here when a fellow isn't dancing."

It was a night of unusually light attendance on the part of the fair s.e.x, with a rather larger attendance than usual of midshipmen, for which reason Dave found many other midshipmen outside, strolling up and down.

"What we need, fellows," called Joyce, coming up to the chums, "is a new regulation that no midshipman may attend a hop unless he drags a femme."

"That would have shut you out of every hop so far this year,"

laughed Dave.

"I know it," Joyce admitted. "But I'm going to cut all hops after this, unless some real queen will favor me as her escort and agree to dance at least half the numbers with me. I've had only two dances this evening.

It's too tame. I'm going back to Bancroft Hall and stand ready to turn in at the first signal. What's the use of hanging around at a hop when there's only one girl to every five fellows?"

"You have suffered the just fate of the free lance," remarked Dan Dalzell virtuously. "As for me, I never think of attending a hop unless I squire some femme thither."

"There used to be girls enough last year," complained Joyce. "Well, I'm off for home and bed."

"We'll stroll along up with you," proposed Darrin.

"No girls for you, either?"

"Not for two numbers. Then we return to the young ladies that we escorted here."

"Just to think," grunted Joyce, sniffing in the salt air that reached them from the waterfront, "a good deal more than a year more here before we get regularly at sea."

"It seems as though we'd been here a long time," sighed Dave. "But I don't suppose there was ever a midshipman yet who didn't long to get away from Annapolis and into the real, permanent life on the wave. A West Point man must feel some of the same longing."

"But he's on the land at West Point," objected Joyce, "and he's still on land after he graduates and goes to some post. The Army cadet has no such glorious future to look forward to as has a midshipman."

"h.e.l.lo, here's Jet," called Dave as a midshipman enveloped in his overcoat approached them. "Going to the hop, Jet?"

"Will you do me a great favor?" asked Midshipman Jetson.

"Certainly, if possible," agreed Dave cordially.

"Then mind your own business," snapped the other midshipman.

Darrin, who had made it a point to forget the brief unpleasantness of the football season, received this rebuke with about the same feelings that a slap in the face would have given him.

The sulky midshipman had stepped past the trio, but Dave, after swallowing hard, wheeled about and hailed:

"Hold on, there, Mr. Jetson!"

"Well?" demanded Jetson, halting and looking back.

"I don't like your tone, sir."

"And I don't like your face, sir," retorted Jetson. "Nor your cheek, either, for that matter."

"I tried to treat you pleasantly," Dave went on, hurt and offended.

"Oh! It required an effort, did it?" sneered Jetson.

"Something may have happened that I don't know anything about," Darrin continued. "It may be that you have some real reason for treating me as you have just done. If you have any good reason I wish you'd tell me, for in that case I must have done something that put me in wrong. If that's the case, I want to make amends."

"Oh--bosh!" grumbled the other midshipman.

"Come on, now!" urged Dave. "Be a man!"

"Then you imply that I am not?" demanded Jetson aggressively.

"Not necessarily," Dave contended. "I just want to make sure, in my own mind, and I should think you'd be similarly interested."

"If you want to insult me, Mr. Darrin," flared back Jetson, "I'll remain here long enough to hear you and to arrange for resenting the insult.

Otherwise--"

"Well?" insisted Dave quietly, though his anger was rising. "Otherwise?"

"Otherwise," retorted Midshipman Jetson, "I'll pursue my way and seek company that pleases me better."

"Look out, Jet, old hot-plate!" laughed Joyce. "You'll soon be insulting all three of us."

"I don't intend to," Jetson rejoined quickly. "My quarrel concerns only Mr. Darrin."

"Oho!" murmured Dave. "There is a quarrel, then?"

"If you choose to pick one."

"But I don't, Mr. Jetson. Quarreling is out of my line. If I've done you any harm or any injustice I'm ready to make good by apologies and otherwise. And, if I haven't wronged you in any way, you should be equally manly and apologize for your treatment of me just now."

"Oh, bosh!" snapped Mr. Jetson once more.

"This is none of my quarrel," interposed Midshipman Joyce, "and I'm not intentionally a promoter of hard feeling. But it seems to me, Jet, that Darry has spoken as fairly as any fellow could. Now, it seems to me that it's up to you to be equally manly."

"So you, too, are a.s.serting that I'm not manly," bristled Mr. Jetson haughtily. "You all seem bound to force trouble on me to-night."

"Not I, then," retorted Joyce, his spirit rising. "I'm finding myself forced to the belief that you're hardly worth having trouble with."

Jetson clenched his fists, taking a step forward, his dark eyes flashing.

Then he halted, as though implying that he was not thus easily to be driven into forgetting himself.