As the steamer could be used only for a party Darrin invited Farley and Wolgast to bring their sweethearts along.  Mrs. Meade at first demurred about going.

“You and Belle have had very little time together,” declared that good lady, “and I’m not so old but that I remember my youth.  With so large a party there’s no need of a chaperon.”

“But we’d immensely like to have you come,” urged Dave; “that is, unless you’d be uncomfortable on the water.”

“Oh, I’m never uncomfortable on the water,” Belle’s mother replied.

“Then you’ll come, won’t you?” pleaded Dave.  Belle’s mother made one of the jolly party.

“You’d better come, too, Danny boy,” urged Dave at the last moment.  “There’ll be no unattached girl with the party, so you’ll be vastly safer with us than you would away from my watchful eye.”

“Huh!  A fine lot your watchful eye has been on me this week,” retorted Midshipman Dalzell.  “Jetson has been my grandmother this week.”

It was a jolly party that steamed down Chesapeake Bay in the launch that afternoon.  There was an enlisted man of the engineer department at the engine, while a seaman acted as helmsman.

“Straight down the bay, helmsman,” Dave directed, as the launch headed out.

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the man, touching his cap.

After that the young people—–­Mrs. Meade was included under that heading—–­gave themselves over to enjoyment.  Belle, with a quiet twinkle in her eyes that was born of the love of teasing, tried very hard to draw Mr. Jetson out, thereby causing that young man to flush many times.

Dan, from the outset, played devoted squire to Mrs. Meade.  That was safe ground for him.

“What’s that party in the sailboat yonder?” inquired Mrs. Meade, when the steamer had been nearly an hour out.  “Are the young men midshipman or officers?”

Dave raised to his eyes the glasses with which the steamer was equipped.

“They’re midshipmen,” he announced.  “Gray and Lambert, of our class, and Haynes and Whipple of the second class.”

“They’ve young ladies with them.”

“Certainly.”

“Isn’t it rather risky for midshipmen to have control of the boat, then, with no older man along?” asked Mrs. Meade.

“It ought not to be,” Dave replied.  “Midshipmen of the upper classes are expected to be familiar with the handling of sailboats.”

“Those fellows are getting careless, at any rate,” muttered Dan Dalzell.  “Look at the way that sail is behaving.  Those fellows are paying too much attention to the girls and too little heed to the handling of the craft!”

Even as Dalzell spoke the helm was jammed over and the boat started to come about.

“Confound Lambert!  He ought to ease off his sheet a good bit,” snapped Midshipman Dalzell.

“Helmsman, point our boat so as to pass under the other craft’s stern,” spoke Darrin so quietly that only Dan and Belle overheard him.