"And why didn't we finish the work?" said Croyden. "Why bring him here, with the attendant expense, and then stop, just short of completion? Why didn't we inter him in the Chapel (though, God save me from burial there), or any place, rather than on trestles under a stairway in a midshipmen's dormitory?" "Because the appropriation was exhausted, or because the Act wasn't worded to include burial, or because the Superintendent didn't want the bother, or because it was a nuisance to have the remains around--or some other absurd reason. At all events, he is there in the cellar, and he is likely to stay there, till Bancroft Hall is swallowed up by the Bay. The junket to France, the parade, the speeches, the spectacular part are over, so, who cares for the entombment, and the respect due the distinguished dead?" "I don't mean to be disrespectful," he observed, "but it's hard luck to have one's bones disturbed, after more than a hundred years of tranquillity, to be conveyed clear across the Atlantic, to be orated over, and sermonized over, and, then, to be flung aside like old junk and forgot. However, we have troubles of our own--I know I have--more real than Paul Jones! He may be glad he's dead, so he won't have any to worry over. In fact, it's a good thing to be dead--one is saved from a heap of worry." She looked at him, without replying. "What's the use?" he said. "A daily struggle to procure fuel sufficient to keep up the fire." "What's the use of anything! Why not make an end of life, at once?" she asked. "Sometimes, I'm tempted," he admitted. "It's the leap in the dark, and no returning, that restrains, I reckon--and the fact that we must face it alone. Otherwise----" She laughed softly. "Otherwise death would have no terrors! You have begged the question, or what amounts to it. But, to return to Annapolis; what else did you see?" "You have been there?" "Many times." "Then you know what I saw," he replied. "I had no wonderful adventures. This isn't the day of the rapier and the mask." She half closed her eyes and looked at him through the long lashes. "What were you doing down on Greenberry Point?" she demanded. "How did you know?" he asked, surprised. "Oh! very naturally. I was in Annapolis--I saw your name on the register--I inquired--and I had the tale of the camp. No one, however, seemed to think it queer!" laughing. "Why should they? Camping out is entirely natural," Croyden answered. "With the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs?" "We were in his party!" "A party which until five days ago he had not joined--at least, so the Superintendent told me, when I dined at his house. He happened to mention your name, found I knew you--and we gossiped. Perhaps we shouldn't, but we did." "What else did he tell you?" "Nothing! he didn't seem even to wonder at your being there----" "But _you_ did?"