nly sorry this
thing has happened!"

"So am I," Dave confessed candidly.

"And Jet made the further fool mistake of declaring that he wouldn't
accept the word of any midshipman in the brigade."

"Something of the sort."

"Why, that's a wholesale, blanket insult to the whole brigade. Darry,
your class will have to take action over such a remark as that."

"Oh, Jetson uttered the remark in the heat of an exceptional temper."

"That won't save him," predicted Hepson sagely. "The insult is there and
it will stick. Your class, Darry, would lose caste with the fellows here
if it allowed such an insult to go."

"Well, if it gets around, I suppose some sort of action will have to
be taken."

"The second class, under the circumstances, can't do much less than send
Jetson to Coventry."

"Oh, that would be too much!" Dave protested generously. "Jetson has
always been an honorable, square fellow in the past."

"He has always been infernally sulky and high-handed," growled
Midshipman Hepson.

"A bad temper is not such an uncommon failing," smiled Dave.

"No; but there are limits to the amount of temper that a gentleman may
display and still be worthy to associate with gentlemen," contended
Hepson stubbornly. "It's the insult to the whole brigade that I'm
thinking of. Darry, I'll wager that your class won't and can't do less
than give Jetson a trip to Coventry."

[Illustration: "Take Off Your Overcoat, Mr. Darrin."]

"Oh, that would be too much--unjust!" protested Dave.

"The class will do it just the same."

"If the class mixes up in my affair, and carries it so far as to send
Jetson to Coventry, I'll be hanged if I don't go there with him!" cried
Darrin impulsively.

The words were out. A man of Darrin's honest nature would feel bound to
stand by even that heated utterance.

"Oh, come, now, Darry, don't be so foolish over a fellow who has treated
you in such fashion."

"I've said it, haven't I?" asked Dave grimly. "It would be an utter
injustice, and I'm not going to see something that is my own affair
distorted into an injustice that would be altogether out of proportion to
Jetson's offense."

By this time the strolling pair of midshipmen had reached the entrance to
Bancroft Hall.

"What are you going to try to do about your dress coat, Darry?" asked
Hepson in an undertone. "Borrow one?"

"If I can find one that fits."

"Take my advice, then. Don't just borrow, and thereby run a chance of
getting bo