"I know," says he. "Nobody likes me."
"Oh, well," says I, "I ain't rubbin' it in. I guess there's white spots in you, after all; even if you do keep 'em covered."
He pricks up his ears at that, and wants to know how and why. Almost before I knows it we've drifted into a heart to heart talk that a half hour before I would have said couldn't have happened. Langdon ain't turned cherub; but he's a whole lot milder, and he takes in what I've got to say as if it was a bulletin from headquarters.
"That's all so," says he. "But I've got to do something. Do you know what I'd like best?"
I couldn't guess.
"I'd like to be in the navy and handle one of those big thirteen-inch guns," says he.
"Why not, then?" says I.
"I don't know how to get in," says he. "I'd go in a minute, if I did."
"You're as good as there now, then," says I. "There's a recruitin' office around on Sixth-ave., not five blocks from here, and the Lieutenant's somethin' of a friend of mine. Is it a go?"
"It is," says Langdon.