officer isn't a real sailor, Danny. He lives and
works on a warship, to be sure, but he's more of a soldier. Now,
as it happens, my whole heart and soul are wrapped up in being
a Naval officer---a real Naval officer."

"With that longing, and an Annapolis diploma," teased Dalzell,
"there is just one thing to do."

"What?"

"Beat your way to the realization of your dream. You've got a
thundering good start."

Midshipman Dave Darrin was not the kind to communicate his occasional
doubts to anyone except his roommate. Had Darrin talked on the
subject with other members of his class he would have found that
many of his classmates were tortured by the same doubts that assailed
him. With midshipmen who were destined to get their diplomas
such doubts were to be charged only to modesty, and were therefore
to their credit. Yet, every spring dozens of Annapolis first
classmen are miserable, instead of feeling the joyous appeal of
the budding season. They are assailed by just such fears as had
reached Dave Darrin.

Dalzell, on the other hand, was tortured by no such dreads. He
went hammering away with marvelous industry, and felt sure, in
his own mind, that he would be retired, in his sixties, an honored
rear admiral.

Had there been only book studies some of the first classmen would
have broken down under the nervous strain. However, there was
much to be done in the shops---hard, physical labor, that had
to be performed in dungaree clothing; toil of the kind that plastered
the hard-worked midshipmen with grime and soot. There were drills,
parades, cross-country marches. The day's work at the Naval Academy,
at any season of the year, is arranged so that hard mental work
is always followed by lively physical exertion, much of it in
the open air.

Dalzell, returning one afternoon from the library encountered
Midshipman Farley, who was looking unaccountably gloomy.

"What's the trouble, Farl---dyspepsia?" grinned Dan, linking one
arm through his friend's. "Own up!"

"Danny, I'm in the dumps," confessed Farley. "I hate to acknowledge
it, but I've been fearfully tempted, for the last three days, to send
in my resignation."

"What's her name?" grinningly demanded Dalzell, who had bravely
recovered from his own two meetings with Venus.

"It isn't a girl---bosh!" jeered Farley. "There's only one girl
in the world I'm interested in---and she's my kid sister."

"Then why this talk of resigning."

"Danny, I'm