“It’s the last day you’ll sell opium to white men,” insisted Dave, “for, as soon as I’m through here I’m going to the police station to inform against you.  They’ll go through here like a twelve-inch shot.”

“You alle same tell cop?” grinned Chow, green hatred showing through his skin.  “Then I tell evelybody about you fliend in there.”

“Do just as you please about that,” retorted Dave with pretended carelessness.  “For one thing, you don’t know his name.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” swaggered Chow impudently.  “Know heap ’bout him.  His name alle same Pen’ton.”

Seizing a marking brush and a piece of paper, Chow Hop quickly wrote out Pennington’s name, correctly spelled.  His ability to write English with a good hand was one of Chow’s great vanities, anyway.

“You go back to your ironing board, yellow-face,” warned Darrin, and something in the young third classman’s face showed Chow that it would be wise to obey.

Then Hallam drew Darrin to one side, to whisper earnestly in his ear: 

“Look out, old man, or you will get Pen into an awful scrape!”

“I shan’t do it,” maintained Darrin.  “If it happens it will have been Pen’s own work.”

“You’d better let the chink go, just to save one of our class.”

“Is a fellow who has turned opium fiend worth saving to the class!” demanded Dave, looking straight into Hallam’s eyes.

“Well, er—­er—­” stammered the other man.

“You see,” smiled Dave, “the doubt hits you just as hard as it does me!”

“Oh, of course, a fellow who has turned opium fiend is no fellow ever to be allowed to reach the bridge and the quarter-deck,” admitted Hallam.  “But see here, are you going to report this affair to the commandant of midshipmen, or to anyone else in authority?”

“I’ve no occasion to report,” replied Dave dryly.  “I am not in any way in command over Pennington.  But I mean to persuade him to report himself for what he has done!”

“But that would ruin him!” protested Hallam, aghast.  “He wouldn’t even be allowed to start on the cruise.  He’d be railroaded home without loss of a moment.”

“Yet you’ve just said that an opium-user isn’t fit to go on in the brigade,” retorted Darrin.

“Hang it, it’s hard to know what to do,” rejoined Hallam, wrinkling his forehead.  “Of course we want to be just to Pen.”

“It doesn’t strike me as being just exactly a question of justice to Pennington,” Darrin went on earnestly.  “If this is anything it’s a question of midshipman honor.  We fellows are bound to see that all the unworthy ones are dropped from the service.  Now, a fellow who has fastened the opium habit on himself isn’t fit to go on, is he?”

“Oh, say, but this is a hard one to settle!” groaned Hallam.

“Then I’ll take all the responsibility upon myself,” said Dave promptly.  “I don’t want to make any mistake, and I don’t believe I’m going to.  Wait just a moment.”