Dave Darrin's First Year at Annapolis Two Plebe Midshipmen 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...

It was the section leader's duty to march his section to the proper recitation room in Academic Hall, to preserve discipline while marching, and to report his section to the ins...

"You'd better drop off, then," hinted Dave ironically, "and take the next car back to Odenton and Baltimore. What earthly good would a Naval officer be who was going to get nerv...

Many of the young men who had passed the surgeons, and who had gone through the dreary, searching ordeals over in grim old Academic Hall, had now become members of the new fourt...

"It is plain enough that both of you plebes need a good deal of practice in the use of the word, sir. Therefore, in your next answers, you will be careful to employ 'sir' after...

"It is already, sir," spoke Lieutenant Nettleson, "a matter of knowledge with you that Mr. Darrin denied his responsibility in each case of disorder among his personal belonging...

Ever since coming to Annapolis he had tried to keep his temper in the background. But now, quivering in his righteous wrath, Darrin was once more the hot-headed, impulsive, gene...

"For coolness, judgment and remarkable bravery displayed in an accident encounter in the sinking and foundering of a sailboat under his command, which accident was not any way d...

The midshipman who had to admit himself "unprepared" immediately struck "zip," or absolute zero as a marking for the day. Many such marks would swiftly result in dragging even a...

The Saturday after Christmas was an anxious one for nearly all of the midshipmen. Only a few availed themselves of any privilege of going into Annapolis this Saturday afternoon....

Others dropped in on Dave, after release at 9.30, evenings, and called for other paragraph rendered in various ways. He was also overhauled, out of doors, in the brief recreatio...

Yet he was equally convinced that he was not likely to catch the plotter against his happiness. He and Dan had already done all that seemed to be in their power.

"I know that, for a while, there was hard feeling between us," continued Brimmer seriously. "It took me a long time to get it out of my stubborn head that you were the one respo...

He and his engineer had both believed that they had abundant room in which to clear the sailboat. When, at last, they had tried their helm, it was found that the steering gear h...

He, too, had just stepped forward from the preliminary care of Dave and of Rollins, for that latter fourth class man was as anxious to see this fight as he had been the other one.

It was bitter for all of them, but it seemed especially hard to the first class men, who had survived the four years of hard grilling and were on the eve of graduation.

"You struck at him first, and didn't land," replied one of the peacemakers. "You go on with a fight here, and you'll bring the officer in charge down on us all. Farley, if you f...

"Let me get a good look at your face, Farley, under the light," continued Henkel. "Why, it looks almost natural again. My, but it was a rough pounding that fellow, Darrin, gave...

Just in the fraction of a second before the knock had sounded at the door Dave had made a fine handspring that brought him from his topsy-turvy attitude to a position of standin...

"Mr. Darrin has left his bed turned down," continued the lieutenant, inspecting that article of furniture. "And, judging by the looks of the sheets, he has been abed with his bo...

In the meantime the other boats of the sailing fleet were making for the scene of the disaster. Yet, with the light breeze, that was no easy thing to do. It would take some time...

"I sure will," broke in Dan, dropping his book, rising and snatching at his cap. "I'll be back as soon as I've heard something, or have settled with the fellow who says it."

"Be careful, Mister Farley," warned Second Class Man Tyson, striding over to him. "You struck out after the call of time. Had the blow landed I would have been compelled under t...

Athletics cannot occupy as prominent a place at Annapolis as at the universities and colleges, for the midshipmen must, above all, be sure that they stand high enough in their a...