“Hotel?” inquired Greg.

“Yes,” nodded Mr. Furlong, turning to leave.  “Miss Wilton.  I don’t believe you’ve met her.  Unless she dislikes your looks I may present you to her.”

“Do,” begged Greg.  “I’d enjoy going through a few dreamy numbers.”

Mr. Furlong, having permission to go to the hotel for Miss Wilton, started off, moving at his best soldier’s step.  After registering at the hotel office, in the book kept for that purpose, as every cadet is required to do, Mr. Furlong hoped for several minutes of talk with his pretty partner, either in a corner of the parlor, or on the veranda.  Only the parlor and the veranda are open to cadets having permission to call at the hotel.

Greg, having no companion to go after, brought out his stool and seated himself beside Dick in front of the tent.

“Why don’t you go over to the hop tonight, Dick?” Greg asked.

“Mainly because I don’t wish to,” replied Prescott, with a smile.

“Granted.  But I am rather wondering why you don’t wish to.”

“I think you can keep a secret, Greg,” replied his old Gridley chum, looking quizzically at Holmes.  “Greg, I’m too awfully lonesome to trust myself at the hop tonight.

“Eh?  Why, old ramrod, the hop ought to be the very place to lose that lonesome feeling.”

“Just what I’m afraid of,” responded Prescott.

“You—–­eh—–­huh!  You’re talking riddles now.

“Greg, a cadet can’t marry.  Or, if he does, his marriage acts as an automatic resignation, and he’s dropped from the cadet corps.”

“I know all that,” Holmes assented.

“Now, here at West Point, with this nearly male-convent life, a fellow often gets so blamed lonesome that almost any girl looks fine to him, Greg.  First thing he knows, a cadet, being a natural gallant, anyway, goes so far in being spoons with some girl that he has to act like a gentleman, then, and declare intentions.  A fellow can’t show a nice girl a whole lot of spoony attentions, and then back off, letting the girl discover that he has been only fooling all summer.  You’ve heard, Greg, of plenty of cadets who have engaged themselves while here at the Academy.”

“Yes,” nodded Greg.  “There’s no regulation against a cadet becoming engaged to a girl.  The regulation only forbids him to marry while he’s a cadet.”

“Now, a fellow like one of us either goes so far, in his lonesomeness, that he’s grateful to a bright girl for cheering him and imagines he’s in love with her; or else he finds that the girl thought he was in love with her, and she expects him to propose.  Greg, I don’t want to make any mistakes that way.  It’s easy for a cadet to capture the average girl’s heart; it’s his uniform, I suppose, for women always have been weak when uniforms enveloped fellows who otherwise wouldn’t attract their notice.  Greg, I wonder how many cadets have been lonesome enough to propose to some girl,