"Considerable," admitted Dave readily.
"What, then, is your slang for a pretty girl?"
"Oh, we call her a queen."
"And a girl who is--who isn"t--pretty?"
"A gold brick," answered Dave unblushingly.
"A gold brick?" gasped Belle. "Dear me! "Dragging a gold brick" to a hop doesn"t sound romantic, does it?"
"It isn"t," Darrin admitted.
"Yet you have invited me--"
"Our cla.s.s hasn"t started in with its course of social compliments yet,"
laughed Dave. "Please go look in the gla.s.s. Or, if you won"t believe the gla.s.s, then just wait and see how proud Dan and I are if we can lead you and Laura out on the dancing floor."
"But what horrid slang!" protested Belle. "The idea of calling a homely girl a gold brick! And I thought you young men received more or less training in being gracious to the weaker s.e.x."
"We do," Dave answered, "as soon as we can find any use for the accomplishment. Fourth cla.s.smen, you know, are considered too young to a.s.sociate with girls. It"s only now, when we"ve made a start in the third cla.s.s, that we"re to be allowed to attend the hops at all."
"But why must you have to have such horrid names for girls who have not been greatly favored in the way of looks? It doesn"t sound exactly gallant."
"Oh, well, you know," laughed Dave, "we poor, despised, no-account middies must have some sort of sincere language to talk after we get our masks off for the day. I suppose we like the privilege, for a few minutes in each day, of being fresh, like other young folks."
"What is your name for "fresh" down at Annapolis!" Belle wanted to know.
"Touge."
"And for being a bit worse than touge?"
"Ratey."
"Which did they call you?" demanded Belle.
Dave started, then sat up straight, staring at Miss Meade.
"I see that your tongue hasn"t lost its old incisiveness," he laughed.
"Not among my friends," Belle replied lightly. "But I can"t get my mind off that uniform of yours that you didn"t bring home. What would have happened to you if you had been bold enough to do it?"
"I guess I"d have "frapped the pap,"" hazarded Dave.
"And what on earth is "frapping the pap"?" gasped Belle.
"Oh, that"s a brief way of telling about it when a midshipman gets stuck on the conduct report."
"I"m going to buy a notebook," a.s.serted Belle, "and write down and cla.s.sify some of this jargon. I"d hate to visit a strange country, like Annapolis, and find I didn"t know the language. And, Dave, what sort of place is Annapolis, anyway?"
"Oh, it"s a suburb of the Naval Academy," Dave answered.
"Is it dreadfully hard to keep one"s place in his cla.s.s there?" asked Belle.
"Well, the average fellow is satisfied if he doesn"t "bust cold,"" Dave informed her.
"Gracious! What sort of explosion is "busting cold"?"
"Why, that means getting down pretty close to absolute zero in all studies. When a fellow has the hard luck to bust cold the superintendent allows him all his time, thereafter, to go home and look up a more suitable job than one in the Navy. And when a fellow bilges----"
"Stop!" begged Belle. "Wait!"
She fled from the room, to return presently bearing the prettiest hat that Dave ever remembered having seen on her shapely young head. In one hand she carried a dainty parasol that she turned over to him.
"What"s the cruise?" asked Darrin, rising.
"I"m going out to get that notebook, now. Please don"t talk any more "midshipman" to me until I get a chance to set the jargon down."
As she stood there, such a pretty and wholesome picture, David Darrin thought he never before had seen such a pretty girl, nor one dressed in such exquisite taste. Being a boy, it did not occur to him that Belle Meade had been engaged for weeks in designing this gown and others that she meant to wear during his brief stay at home.
"What are you thinking of?" asked Belle.
"What a pity it is that I am doomed to a short life," sighed Darrin.
"A short life? What do you mean?" Belle asked.
"Why, I"m going to be a.s.sa.s.sinated, the first hop that you attend at the Naval Academy."
"So I"m a gold brick, am I?" frowned Belle.
"You--a--gold brick?" stammered Dave. "Why, you--oh, go look in the gla.s.s!"
"Who will a.s.sa.s.sinate you?"
"A committee made up from among the fellows whose names I don"t write down on your dance card. And there are hundreds of them at Annapolis.
You can"t dance with them all."
"I don"t intend to," replied Belle, with a toss of her head. "I"ll accept, as partners, only those who appear to me the handsomest and most distinguished looking of the midshipmen. No one else can write his name on my card."
"Dear girl, I"m afraid you don"t understand our way of making up dance cards at Crabtown."
"Where?"
"Crabtown. That"s our local name for Annapolis."
"Gracious! Let me get out quickly and get that notebook!"
"At midshipmen"s hops the fellow who drags the----"