Dave Darrins Fourth Year at Annapolis | Page 5

not grow drowsy. On the contrary, he became more wide awake. In fact, he began to imagine that he was becoming possessed of the vision of the cat. Dark as it was in the room, Dave began to feel certain that he could distinguish plainly the ghostly figure of the saving doughface in the alcove opposite.
Twelve o'clock struck. Then more waiting. It was not so very long, this time, however, before there came a faint tapping at the window.
Dave Darrin was out of bed as though he had been shot out. Like a flash he was at the window, peering out. Where, after all, was the cat's vision of which he had thought himself possessed? Some one was outside the window. Dave thought he recognized the Naval uniform, but he could not see a line of the face.
Tap-tap-tap! sounded softly. Dave threw the window up stealthily.
"You, Dan?" he whispered.
"Of course," came the soft answer. "Stand aside. Let me in---on the double-quick!"
Dave pushed the window up the balance of the way, then stepped aside. Dan Dalzell landed on his feet in the room, cat-like, from the terrace without. Then Dave, without loss of an instant, closed the window and wheeled about in the darkness.
"Hustle!" commanded Dave.
"What about?"
"Get off your uniform! Get into pajamas. Then I'll-----"
Dave's jaws snapped together resolutely. He did not finish, just then, for he knew that Midshipman Dalzell could be very stubborn at times.
"I'll have a light in a jiffy," whispered Dan "I brought back a candle with me."
"You won't use it---not in here," retorted Dave. "The dark is light enough for you. Hustle into your pajamas."
Perhaps Midshipman Dalzell did not make all the speed that his roommate desired, but at last Dan was safely rid of his uniform, underclothing and shoes, and stood arrayed in pajamas.
"Now, I'll hide this doughface over night," whispered Darrin, going toward Dalzell's bed. "At the same time you get the articles of your equipment out from under your bed clothes and hang them up where they belong."
"I'll have to light the candle for that," muttered Dan.
"If you do, I'll blow it out. There's a regulation against running lights in the rooms after taps."
"Do you worship the little blue-covered volume of regulations, Dave?" Dan demanded with a laugh.
"No; but I don't propose to take any chances in my last year here. I don't intend to lose my commission in the Navy just because I can't control myself."
Dan sniffed, but he silently got his parts of uniform out from between the sheets and hung up the articles where they belonged, in this going by the sense of feeling.
Then, all in the dark as they were, Midshipman Dave Darrin seized his chum and roommate by the shoulders.
"Danny boy," he commanded firmly, "come over with an account of yourself! Why this mad prank tonight---and what was it?"

CHAPTER II
SOME ONE PUSHES THE TUNGSTEN
You don't have to know every blessed thing that I do, do you?" demanded Dan Dalzell, in an almost offended tone.
"No; and I have no right to know anything that you don't tell me willingly. Are you ready to give me any explanation of tonight's foolishness?
"Seeing that you kept awake for me, and were on hand to let me in, I suppose I'll have to," grumbled Dan.
"Well, then?
"Dave, for the first time tonight, I struck my flag."
"Struck to whom?"
"Oh---a girl, of course," grunted Dan.
"You? A girl?" repeated Dave in amazement.
"Yes; is it any crime for me to get acquainted with a girl, and to call on her at her home?"
"Certainly not. But, Dan, I didn't believe that you ever felt a single flutter of the pulse when girls were around. I thought you were going to grow up into a cheerful, happy old bachelor."
"So did I," sighed Dan.
"And now you've gone and met your fate?"
"I'm not so sure about that," Dalzell retorted moodily.
"Do you mean that you don't stand any real show in front of the pair of bright eyes that have made you strike your colors?"
"I'm afraid I don't."
"Dan, is the game worth the candle," argued Darrin.
"You're mightily interested in Belle Meade, aren't you?"
"Yes; but that's different, Danny boy."
"How is it different, I'd like to know?"
"Well, in the first place, there's no guesswork in my case. Belle and I are engaged, and we feel perfectly sure each of the other. I'm so sure of Belle that I dream about her only in my leisure moments. I don't ever let her face come between myself and the pages of a textbook. I am here at the Naval Academy working for a future that Belle is to share with me when the time comes, and so, in justice to her, I don't let the thought of her get between myself and the duties that will lead to the career she is to share with me."
"Humph!" commented