Midshipman Darrin explained the trouble as well as he could.
"So the idiot accused you of keeping him off the football eleven!" demanded Hepson in astonishment.
"Yes; and I offered to prove, by you, that I had nothing to do with his exclusion from the team."
"Why the sole and whole reason why Jetson wasn't called to the Navy team," declared Hepson, "was because he was believed to be too awkward and too dangerous to other players. Whew, but I'm certainly sorry this thing has happened!"
"So am I," Dave confessed candidly.
"And Jet made the further fool mistake of declaring that he wouldn't accept the word of any midshipman in the brigade."
"Something of the sort."
"Why, that's a wholesale, blanket insult to the whole brigade. Darry, your class will have to take action over such a remark as that."
"Oh, Jetson uttered the remark in the heat of an exceptional temper."
"That won't save him," predicted Hepson sagely. "The insult is there and it will stick. Your class, Darry, would lose caste with the fellows here if it allowed such an insult to go."