"Why don't you go over to the hop tonight, Dick?" Greg asked.

"Mainly because I don't wish to," replied Prescott, with a smile.

"Granted. But I am rather wondering why you don't wish to."

"I think you can keep a secret, Greg," replied his old Gridley
chum, looking quizzically at Holmes. "Greg, I'm too awfully lonesome
to trust myself at the hop tonight.

"Eh? Why, old ramrod, the hop ought to be the very place to lose
that lonesome feeling."

"Just what I'm afraid of," responded Prescott.

"You---eh---huh! You're talking riddles now.

"Greg, a cadet can't marry. Or, if he does, his marriage acts
as an automatic resignation, and he's dropped from the cadet corps."

"I know all that," Holmes assented.

"Now, here at West Point, with this nearly male-convent life,
a fellow often gets so blamed lonesome that almost any girl looks
fine to him, Greg. First thing he knows, a cadet, being a natural
gallant, anyway, goes so far in being spoons with some girl that
he has to act like a gentleman, then, and declare intentions.
A fellow can't show a nice girl a whole lot of spoony attentions,
and then back off, letting the girl discover that he has been