"Then you'll come, won't you?" pleaded Dave. Belle's mother made one of the jolly party.
"You'd better come, too, Danny boy," urged Dave at the last moment. "There'll be no unattached girl with the party, so you'll be vastly safer with us than you would away from my watchful eye."
"Huh! A fine lot your watchful eye has been on me this week," retorted Midshipman Dalzell. "Jetson has been my grandmother this week."
It was a jolly party that steamed down Chesapeake Bay in the launch that afternoon. There was an enlisted man of the engineer department at the engine, while a seaman acted as helmsman.
"Straight down the bay, helmsman," Dave directed, as the launch headed out.
"Aye, aye, sir," replied the man, touching his cap.
After that the young people—-Mrs. Meade was included under that heading—-gave themselves over to enjoyment. Belle, with a quiet twinkle in her eyes that was born of the love of teasing, tried very hard to draw Mr. Jetson out, thereby causing that young man to flush many times.
Dan, from the outset, played devoted squire to Mrs. Meade. That was safe ground for him.
"What's that party in the sailboat yonder?" inquired Mrs. Meade, when the steamer had been nearly an hour out. "Are the young men midshipman or officers?"
Dave raised to his eyes the glasses with which the steamer was equipped.