"Why, if they're all going to be as chesty as that near-officer I spoke to in the hotel," blinked Dan, "I'm not so sure that I want to go in with the bunch."

"That officer wasn't either chesty or sn.o.bbish," rejoined Darrin.

"Then you will kindly explain what he tried to do to me?"

"That's easy enough. That Naval officer recognized in you a rather common type--the too-chummy and rather fresh American boy. Down here in the service, where different grades in rank exist, it is necessary to keep the fresh greenhorn in his place."

"Oh!" muttered Dan, blinking hard.

"As to your not wanting to go into the service," Dave continued, "if you should fail, tomorrow, in your physical examination, you would be as blue as indigo, and have the blue-light signal up all the way back home."

"I don't know but that is so. Yes; I guess it is," Dalzell a.s.sented.

"Now, there are at least ninety-nine chances in a hundred that you're going to pa.s.s the Navy doctors all right, Dan," his chum went on. "If you do, you'll be sworn into the Naval service as a midshipman. Then you'll have to keep in mind that you're not an admiral, but only a midshipman--on probation, at that, as our instructions from the Navy Department inform us. Now, as a new midshipman, you're only the smallest, greenest little boy in the whole service. Just remember that, and drop all your jolly, all your freshness and all your patronizing ways. Just listen and learn, Dan, and study, all the time, how to avoid being fresh.

If you don't do this, I'm mighty confident that you're up against a hard and tough time, and that you'll have most of the other midshipmen down on you from the start."

"Any more 'roast' for me?" asked Dalzell plaintively.

"No; for, if you need any more, you'll get it from other midshipmen, who don't know you as well as I do, and who won't make any allowances for your greenness and freshness."

"My!" murmured Dan enthusiastically. "Won't I quiver with glee the first time I see you being called for twelve-inch freshness!"

Yet, despite their wordy encounters, the two remained, as always, the best and most loyal of friends.

For an hour and a half the two youngsters roamed about Annapolis, taking many interested looks at quaint old buildings that had stood since long before the Revolutionary War.

At last they turned back to the hotel, for, as Dalzell suggested, they needed a long night's sleep as a good preparation for going before the Naval surgeons on the next day.

Five minutes after they had turned out the gas Dave Darrin was soundly, blissfully asleep.

In another bed in the same room Dan Dalzell tossed for fully half an hour ere sleep caught his eyelids and pinned them down.

In his slumber, however, Dan dreamed that he was confronting the superintendent of the Naval Academy and a group of officers, to whom he was expounding the fact that he was right and they were wrong. What the argument was about Dan didn't see clearly, in his dream, but he had the satisfaction of making the superintendent and most of the Naval officers with him feel like a lot of justly-rebuked landsmen.

CHAPTER II

THE FIRST DAY AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY

A few minutes before nine o'clock, the next morning, Dave and Dan were strolling through Lover's Lane, not far from the administration building at the United States Naval Academy.

Their instructions bade them report at 9.15. Dan was for going in at once and "calling on" the aide to the superintendent. But this Dave vetoed, holding that the best thing for them to do was to stick to the very letter of their orders.

So, as they waited, the young men got a glimpse of the imposing piles of buildings that compose the newer Naval Academy. Especially did handsome, big, white Bancroft Hall enchain their admiration. This structure is one of the n.o.blest in the country. In it are the midshipmen's mess, the midshipmen's barracks for a thousand young men, numerous offices and a huge recreation hall.

"That's a swell hotel where they're going to put us up for four years, isn't it?" demanded Dan.

"I fancy that we'll find it something more--or less--than a hotel, before we're through it," was Dave's prophetic reply.

As, at this time in the morning, all of the enrolled midshipmen were away at one form or another of drill or instruction, the central grounds were so empty of human life that the onlooker could form no idea of the immense, throbbing activity that was going on here among the hundreds of midshipmen on duty.

"Here's some of our kind," spoke Dan, at last, as he espied more than a dozen young men, in citizen's dress, strolling along under the trees.

"I guess they're candidates, fast enough," nodded Darrin, after briefly looking at the approaching group.

"Cheap-looking lot, most of them, aren't they?" asked Dalzell cheerfully.

"Probably they're saying the same thing about us," chuckled Dave dryly.

"Let 'em, then. Who cares?" muttered Dalzell.

"Dan, my boy, I reckon you'll need to put the soft pedal on your critical tendencies," warned Dave. "And, if you want my friendly opinion, I've a big idea that you're going to talk your way into a lot of trouble here."

"Trouble?" grinned Dalzell. "Well, I'm used to it."

In truth Dan had been victor in many a hard-fought schoolboy disagreement, as readers of the High School Boys Series are aware.

As the young men in question drew nearer they eyed Darrin and Dalzell with a disapproval that was not wholly concealed. The truth was that Dave and Dan were recognized as not being boys who had studied at one of the Naval prep. schools in Annapolis.

The a.s.sumption was, therefore, that Dave and Dan had not been able to afford such a luxury.

"Good morning, gentlemen," was Dave's pleasant greeting. "You are candidates, like ourselves, I take it?"

This fact being acknowledged, Dave introduced himself and his friend, and soon some pleasant new acquaintances were being formed, for Darrin had a way that always made him popular with strangers.

"Have you two got to go up before the June exams. here?" asked one of the young men, who had introduced himself as Grigsby.

"Part of it," grinned Dan. "We've already gone through the primer tests and the catechism, and that sort of thing; but we still have to go before the barber and the toilet specialists and see whether our personal appearance suits."

"You're lucky, then," replied Grigsby. "Our crowd all have to take the academic exams."

"Cheer up," begged Dan. "Any baby can go past the academic exams.

Arithmetic is the hardest part. One funny chap on the Civil Service Commission nearly got me by asking me how much two and two are, but Darrin saved me, just in the nick of time, by holding up five fingers; so I knew the answer right off."

Some of the candidates were already surveying Dan with a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt. They had heard much of the severe way upper cla.s.smen at the Naval Academy have of taking all the freshness out of a new man, and, like Dave, these other candidates scented plenty of trouble ahead for cheerful, grinning Dan Dalzell.

"Gentlemen," broke in Dave quietly, "do you see the time on the clock over on the academic building? It's nine-fourteen. What do you say if we step promptly over to the administration building and plunge into what's ahead of us?"

"Good enough," nodded one of the new acquaintances. "Suppose you lead the way?"

So, with Dan by his side, Dave piloted the others over to the administration building, just beyond the chapel.

As they stepped inside, and found themselves in a hallway, a marine orderly confronted them.

"Candidates, gentlemen? Walk right upstairs. An orderly there will direct you to the office of the superintendent's aide."

"Thank you," replied Dave, with a bow, and led the way upstairs.