"You'd feel first rate if you could be dressed up for a few hours,
go into a hotel dining room, have a good meal and then slip into
a ballroom for a dance," laughed Prescott.

"Bosh!" flared Tom. "I'm no dandy, and all I want is to be a
man."

"How do you stand, Harry?" grinned Dave Darrin. "Do you agree
with Tom that dirt is the best stuff with which to decorate one's
clothing?"

"I never said that," broke in Tom hotly. "I'm as ready for a
bath and clean clothing as any of you. I like to wear old
clothes---not soiled ones!"

"If anyone happens to overhear us talking," laughed Hazy, "he'll
think that we're all planning to take up prize fighting as our
work in life."

"I don't like to hear the officers of the Army and Navy scoffed
at as a lot of idling, time-wasting dandies," Darry asserted.

"And I don't like to be accused of liking dirt on my clothes,
just because I am going to be a civil engineer," Tom explained
in a milder voice.

An ideal bit of green forest, at the edge of a limpid lake, appealed
to Dick & Co. as the noon stopping place.

"I've a good mind to fish," remarked Danny Grin.