since no work was actually required on this night,
none was done.

Midshipmen wandered about in their own rooms and visited. The more they
realized the defeat, the bluer they became. From some rooms came sounds
of laughter, but it was hollow.

Farley got out a banjo, breaking into a lively darky reel. Yet, somehow,
the sound was mournful.

"Please stop that dirge and play something cheerful!" begged the voice of
a passing midshipman.

"Put the lyre away, Farl," advised Page. "Nothing sounds happy to-night."

"We love to sing and dance. We're happy all the day--ha, ha!" wailed Dan
Dalzell. He wasn't so very blue himself, but he was trying to keep in
sympathy with the general tone of feeling.

"Well, Hep, you made as good a showing, after all, as could be expected
with a dub team," spoke Joyce consolingly, when they met in a corridor.

"It wasn't a dub team," retorted Hepson dismally. "The eleven was all
right. The only trouble lay in having a dub for a captain."

It was a relief to hundreds that night when taps sounded at last, and
the master switch turned off the lights in midshipmen quarters. At least
the young men were healthy and did not waste hours in wooing sleep and
forgetfulness.

Then Sunday morning came, and the football season was over until the
next year.

"From now on it's going to be like starting life all over again, after a
fire," was the way Dan put it that Sunday morning, in an effort to make
some of his comrades feel that all was not lost.

Had Dan been able to foresee events which he and Dave must soon
encounter, even that grinning midshipman wouldn't have been happy.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MAN WITH A SCOWL ON TAP

"I wish we lived in Annapolis, that we might be here at every hop!"
sighed Belle Meade, as the waltz finished and she and Dave, flushed and
happy, sought seats at the side of the ballroom.

They had hardly seated themselves when they were joined by Dan and
Laura Bentley.

"I was just saying, Laura," Belle went on, "that it would be splendid if
we lived here all through the winter. Then we'd have a chance to come to
every hop."

"Wouldn't we want to put in a part of the winter near West Point?" asked
Miss Bentley, smiling, though with a wistful look in her eyes.

"Perhaps that would be fairer, to you," Belle agreed.

"You'd soon get tired of the hops," ventured Dave.

"Can one ever weary of dancing?" Belle demanded. "Well, perhaps one
might, though never on the