Dave Darrins Third Year at Annapolis | Page 3

"I can't say, until I get back. But I've been training. I hope to be called
to the team. So does Dan."
"I hope you and Dan both make the eleven," cried Belle, "so that you
can get away to see the game."
"Why, we can see the game better," retorted Dave, "if we don't make

the team."
"Why, are midshipmen who don't belong to the eleven allowed to see
the game?" asked Belle in some surprise.
"Are we?" demanded Dave. "Belle, don't you know what the
Army-Navy game on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day is like? The
entire brigade of midshipmen and the whole corps of cadets travel over
to Philadelphia. There, on Franklin Field, before an average of thirty
thousand yelling spectators, the great annual game of the two great
national academies is fought out."
"You haven't gone to see the annual game at Philadelphia before this,
have you?" asked Miss Meade.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because, Belle, both years, at Thanksgiving time, Danny boy and I
have found ourselves so far behind in our studies that we just took the
time to stay behind and bone, bone, bone over our books."
"And you think this year will be different?"
"Oh, yes; when a man is half way through Annapolis the studies
become easier to him. You see, in two years of the awful grind a fellow,
if he lasts that long, has learned how to study in the right way. I'm
going to get two tickets, Belle, so that you and your mother can go to
see the game. And of course good old Dick can do as much for Laura
Bentley and her mother. You'll come, of course, to root your hardest for
the Navy, just as Laura will go and root for the Army. By the way, have
you heard whether Dick and Greg expect to play on the Army eleven?"
"When they were here this summer they said they hoped to play
football with the Army. That's all I know, Dave, about the plans of
Dick and Greg."

"I hope they do play," cried Midshipman Darrin cheerily. "Even with
two such old gridiron war horses as Dick and Greg against us, I believe
that the Navy team, this year, has some fellows who can take the Army
scalp with neatness and despatch."
Dave rambled on, for some time now, with of the athletic doings at the
Naval Academy. It was not that he was so much interested in the
subject--at that particular moment--but it was certainly fine to have
Belle Meade for an interested listener.
"Well, you're half way through your course," put in Belle at last. "You
passed your last annual examinations in June."
"Yes."
"How did you stand in your exams?"
"I came through with honors," Dave declared unblushingly.
"Honors?" repeated Belle delightedly. "Oh, Dave, I didn't know you
were one of the honor men of your class."
"Yes," laughed Midshipman Dave, though there was a decidedly
serious look in his fine face. "Belle, I consider that any fellow who gets
by the examiners has passed with honors. So we're all honor men that
are now left in the class. Several of the poor fellows had to write home
last June asking their parents for the price of a ticket homeward."
"But, now that you've got half way through, you're pretty sure to go the
rest of the way safely," Belle insisted.
"That's almost too much of a brag to make, Belle. The truth is, no
fellow is safe until he has been commissioned as an ensign, and that's at
least two years after he has graduated from the Naval Academy. Why
even after examination, you know, a fellow has to go to sea for two
years, as a midshipman, and then take another and final examination at
sea. A whole lot of fellows who managed to get through the Academy
find themselves going to pieces on that examination at sea."

"And then--" went on Belle.
"Why, if a fellow can't pass his exams, he's dropped from the service."
"After he has already graduated from Academy? That isn't fair," cried
Belle Meade.
"No, it isn't quite fair," assented Midshipman Dave, with a shrug of his
shoulders. "Yet what is one going to do about it? It's all in the game--to
take or leave."
"Who ever made the Naval Academy and the service so hard as that?"
the girl wanted to know.
"Congress, I guess," laughed Dave, "but acting, very likely, on the
advice of a lot of old admirals who are through themselves, and who
expect the youngsters to know as much as the very admirals. Why,
Belle, when I was a few years younger, and first began to dream about
going to the Naval Academy I had a mental picture of a very jolly life,