"Why must I give you my word of honor?" he demanded defiantly. "Isn't my
plain word good enough?"

"Your word of honor that you had never smoked opium before to-day would
help to ease my mind a whole lot," replied Darrin. "Come, unburden
yourself, won't you, Pen?"

"I'll tell you, Darry, just how it happened. To-day _was_ the first
time, on my word of honor, I came out into Annapolis with a raging
toothache. Now, you know how a fellow gets to hate to go before the
medical officers of the Academy with a tale about his teeth."

"Yes, I do," nodded Darrin. "If a fellow is too much on the medical
report for trouble with his teeth, then it makes the surgeons look his
mouth over with all the more caution, and in the end a fellow may get
dropped from the brigade just because he has invited over zeal from the
dentist. But what has all this to do with opium smoking?"

"Just this," replied Pennington, hanging his head. "I went into a drug
store and asked a clerk that I know what was the best thing for
toothache. He told me the best he knew was to smoke a pipe of opium, and
told me where to find Chow Hop, and what to say to the chink. And it's
all a lie about opium helping a sore tooth," cried the wretched
midshipman, clapping a hand to his jaw, "for there goes that fiendish
tooth again! But say! You fellows are not going to leak about my little
mishap?"

"No," replied Darrin with great promptness. "You're going to do that
yourself."