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,
and afterwards find out it was all a mistake? And how many girls
fall in love with the uniform, thinking all the while that it's
the fellow in the uniform? How many cadets and girls recover
from the delusion only in after years when it's too late. I tell
you, Greg, when a fellow gets into this cadet life, I think the
practice of going too ofte