“Hasn’t Osborn told you of what happened between him and me after eleven last night?”
“Not a word.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. I had an engagement out in town; a pleasant party had been planned. I would have gone but Osborn stopped me. When I tried to pass him he tackled me and we both went to the floor. He spoiled for me a brand new service coat and stopped me from keeping an engagement. I plugged him good and hard and I’m glad of it.”
“If you had gone your absence would have been reported just like the five who were absent from the midnight muster last night, would it not?”
“Of course. But Osborn did not know that a muster was to be held.”
“Yes, he did know it. Warren told me he telephoned Os last night at eleven that the O. C. knew some midshipmen were out and was laying a trap for them. Os stopped you from going and saved your stripes for you. And by the way of thanks you strike him a fearful blow in the eye and tell me you’re glad of it. I’m disgusted with you,” and indeed Himski looked his disdain.
Bollup began to feel uncomfortable. “Look here, Himski,” he said weakly and uneasily, “don’t you think Os, being nothing but a clean sleever, should pay a little more respect to the cadet lieutenant-commander than——”
Himski, in a fever of indignation, now turned on Bollup with uncontrollable fury. “My heavens, man,” he almost shouted, “have you the slightest conception of what a contemptible cad you are? Have you never guessed why you got four stripes and Os a clean sleeve? You, cad that you are, to suggest that the man who made you, who saved you from disgraceful dismissal, who with a whole heart gave you the four stripes that up to that time were slated for him, should use more deference to the stripes that were his! and which out of his great soul he presented to you, shriveled, dwarfed, contemptible thing that you are! And so you are glad you blackened his eye, are you, and will never speak to him again?
“Faugh! You to speak so of the man who saved you from disgraceful expulsion! You make me sick. Cross my name out of your list of friends, too.”
“Why, why, Himski, what are you talking about?—why, I don’t think you have any right to talk this way to me,” stammered Bollup, utterly aghast at Himski’s onslaught.