“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?”