for
officers should go to waste, and the appointments to Annapolis be given
to good high-school scholars, who might be cowardly sissies at heart, or
blackguards like Forsythe!"

"But that is how you received your appointment, Billie Denman," said the
girl, warmly; "and you are neither a sissy nor a blackguard."

"I hope not," he answered, grimly. "Yet, if I had first served my time
as seaman apprentice before being appointed to Annapolis, I might be up
on that bridge now, instead of standing supinely by while one seaman
apprentice does the navigating and another the bossing."

"There is that man again. I'm afraid of him, Billie. All the others,
except Forsythe, have been civil to me; but he looks at me--so--so
hatefully."

Billings, minus his clean white jacket, had come up the hatch and gone
forward. He came back soon, showing a sullen, scowling face, as though
his cheerful disposition had entirely left him.

As he reached the galley hatch, he cast upon the girl a look of such
intense hatred and malevolence that Denman, white with anger, sprang to
the hatch, and halted him.

"If ever again," he said, explosively, "I catch you glaring at this lady
in that manner, parole or no parole, I'll throw you overboard."

Billings' face straightened; he saluted, and, without a word, went down
the hatch, while Denman returned to the girl.

"He is an enlisted man," he said, bitterly, "not a passed seaman
apprentice; so I downed him easily with a few words."

And then came the thought, which he did not express to Florrie, that his
fancied limitations, which prevented him from being on the bridge, also
prevented him from enlightening the morbid Billings as to the real
source of the "terrible punch" he had received; for, while he could
justify his silence to Florrie, he could only, with regard to Billings,
feel a masculine dread of ridicule at dressing in feminine clothing.

CHAPTER XXII

At supper that evening they were served with prunes, bread without
butter, and weak tea, with neither milk nor sugar.

"Orders from for'a'd, sir," said Daniels, noticing Denman's involuntary
look of surprise. "All hands are to be on short allowance for a
while--until something comes our way again."

"But why," asked Denman, "do you men include us in your plans and
economies? Why did you not rid yourself of us last night, when you sent
one of your number ashore?"

Daniels was a tall, somber-faced man--a typical ship's cook--and he
a