“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?”