"Well—er—just between ourselves," continued Lieutenant Willow slowly, "there has been a fight to-night between two midshipmen."
"No!"
Lieutenant-Commander Stearns struck his fist rather heavily against the desk.
"A fight—a real fight—with fists?" continued the officer in charge, in a tone of mock incredulity. "No, no, no, Willow, you don't mean it—you can't mean it!"
"Yes, I do," rejoined the junior officer rather stiffly.
"Oh, dear, what is the service coming to?" gasped Stearns ironically. "Why, Willow, we never heard of such things when we were midshipmen here. Now, did we?"
"I'm afraid we did—sometimes," admitted the junior officer. "But duty is duty, you know, my dear Stearns. And this was an unusual fight, too. The man who was whipped insisted on another fight right then and there, and—he won the second fight."
"Bully!" chuckled the officer in charge. "Whew, but I wish I had been there!"
"Stearns, you surely don't mean that?" gasped duty-mad Mr. Willow.
"You're quite right, Willow. No; I certainly don't want to be a spoilsport, and I'm glad I wasn't there—in my official capacity. But I'd like to have been divested of my rank for just an hour so that I could have taken in such a scene as that."