"Oh, well, you'll get through," the girl predicted with cheery confidence.
"I shall, if it's really in me," Dave promised. "But I'm not going to do any bragging, Belle, until I'm safely through and have been out of the woods for a long time."
"And you won't do any bragging then, either. It isn't in your line.
What's Dan Dalzell going to do while he's home on leave?"
"Sleep, he says."
"The lazy boy!"
"No, he's a tired boy, Belle. I think the past year has been even just a little harder on him than it has on me. However, of course Dan won't really sleep. He'll be out by this afternoon. Just now I imagine that he's talking like wildfire with his mother."
It was a wrong guess, however. Just then the telephone sounded in the next room, and Belle went to answer it.
"It's your shipmate, Dan," she called laughingly. "He wants to talk with you, Dave."
"I wonder how the fellow ever guessed that I was here," smiled Darrin, as he hastily joined Belle at the 'phone.
"Hello," hailed Dalzell at the other end of the wire. "Going to do anything in particular this afternoon, David, little giant?"