The Greek shook his head wistfully.

“This is yours now, Tony; and twice as much more afterwards, if you do what I want of you.  It’s a good joke that I want to play on a midshipman down at the Academy.”

“A joke, eh?” repeated the Greek.  “Then, sare, my frien’, it can’t be anything so ver’ bad, eef it only a joke.”

“Oh, it isn’t anything bad,” Brimmer lied cheerfully.  “But that fellow played a warm one on me, and I want to pay him back.”

“I understand, sare, my ver’ good frien’.”

Inside of five minutes Tony understood very much better.  Still, the Greek saw no real harm in what he now engaged himself to do.

That night Tony slept with Brimmer’s ten-dollar note under his pillow.  Dave Darrin slept as soundly as ever, unconscious of harm hanging over his head.

Midshipman Brimmer did much gleeful chuckling after taps, as he lay on the bed in the room that Henkel had once shared with him.

“Now, let’s see anyone get a chance to bring this job back to me!” laughed Brimmer.  “And goodby, Darrin!  The Naval Academy won’t know you much longer!”

CHAPTER XVII

TONY BAITS THE HOOK

Up to this time Darrin had dropped in at Tony’s but once, and Dan not at all.

The Saturday after Christmas was an anxious one for nearly all of the midshipmen.  Only a few availed themselves of any privilege of going into Annapolis this Saturday afternoon.  Most of the young men remained in their rooms at Bancroft Hall, anxiously going over the work in which they were soon to take their semi-annual examinations.

Especially was this true of the fourth class men in the “wooden” or lowest sections.  Most of these men knew that, if they succeeded in staying on at all, it would be by a very small margin indeed.  Even the men in the “savvy sections,” with the highest marks of their class, were eager to come out as well as possible in the dreaded semi-ans.

Dave and Dan both had secured permission to go into Annapolis.

“We’ll want to clear out the cobwebs by a brisk walk, anyway,” declared Darrin.

They did not intend to go townward, however, until rather late in the afternoon.

Dan, when he could stand the grind no longer picked up his cap.  Dave wanted to put in least fifteen minutes more over his book.

“I’ve got to get out in the air,” Dalzell muttered.

“Going to town?” Dave asked.

“Yes.  Coming along?”

“I’ve got a little more in logarithms to clean up,” murmured Darrin, looking wistfully at two pages in one of his text-books on mathematics.  “Will it do as well, Danny boy, if I follow in fifteen or twenty minutes?”

“Yes; you’ll probably find me on Main Street, though you can look in at Wiegard’s on the way.”

Wiegard’s is the famous confectionery shop where cadets go for candy, for ices or soda fountain drinks.  If upper class men and young ladies are plentiful in Wiegard’s, however, prudent fourth class men keep right on without stopping.