“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 class hasn’t started in with its course of social compliments yet,” laughed Dave.  “Please go look in the glass.  Or, if you won’t believe the glass, 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 sex.”

“We do,” Dave answered, “as soon as we can find any use for the accomplishment.  Fourth classmen, you know, are considered too young to associate with girls.  It’s only now, when we’ve made a start in the third class, 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,” asserted Belle, “and write down and classify 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 class 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——­”