furlough!"

"I don't suppose," replied Belle, "that it often happens that one little city often has the honor of furnishing, at the same time, two midshipmen for Annapolis and two cadets for West Point."

"Very likely not," nodded Dave. "But it seems too bad, just the same.
What wouldn't I give to see Tom or Harry? Or Greg or Dick? And now that
I'm here Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes are but just barely gone."

"Yes; they have been but four days gone," assented Belle. "It does seem too bad that you and your West Point chums couldn't have been one day together."

"I haven't seen a blessed one of the good old four since I left for Annapolis, more than two years ago," muttered Dave complainingly. "What wouldn't I give—just to see what they look like in these days?"

"Well, what would you give?" demanded Belle, rising and hesitating.

"They've given you their photos, then!" asked Dave Darrin guessing.
"Please be quick—let me see the photos."

Belle glided from the room, to return with a large card.

"They were taken altogether," she explained, handing the card over to
Darrin. "There they are—all in one group."

Dave seized the card, studying eagerly the print mounted thereon.

"Whew! What a change two years make in a High School boy, doesn't it?" demanded Darrin.

"Of course," answered Belle Meade. "Do you imagine that you and Dan
Dalzell haven't changed any, either?"

Readers of our "HIGH SCHOOL SERIES" will well remember Dick Prescott, Greg Holmes, Tom Reade, Harry Hazelton, Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell, a famous sextette of young High School athletes, who, in their High School days, were known as Dick & Co.

Readers of the four volumes of that series will recall that Dick Prescott received the congressman's nomination to West Point, and that Greg Holmes was appointed a cadet at the same big government Army school by one of the state's senators. Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell, a little later, secured nominations to Annapolis from the same gentlemen; and Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, who had thrown their lot with civil engineering, had gone West to engage with an engineering firm of railroad builders.

From that passing of the old High School days the experiences and adventures of Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes are told in the volumes of "THE WEST POINT SERIES."

Those of Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton are set forth fully in "THE YOUNG
ENGINEERS' SERIES."

As for Dave Darrin and Dan, their life, since leaving the High School, and casting their lot with the Navy, has been fully told in the two preceding volumes of the present series, "DAVE DARRIN'S FIRST YEAR AT AKNAPOLIS" and "DAVE DARRIN'S SECOND YEAR AT ANNAPOLIS."

"Well, I'll meet Dick and Greg this coming Thanksgiving, at any rate," predicted Midshipman Darrin. "You know what happens the Saturday after Thanksgiving on Franklin Field, don't you, Belle?"

"You young men of Annapolis and West Point play football, don't you!" asked Belle.

"Do we?" demanded Dave, his eyes aglow with enthusiasm. "Don't we, though. And, mark me, Belle, the Navy is going to carry away the Army's scalp this year."

"Are you going to join the team?" asked Belle.

"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