Gentlemen, I am quite ready to leave it to a jury of any intelligent citizens as to whether the offending midshipmen or yourselves displayed the more gallantry and honor. For you have all admitted doing something that is not consistent with the highest standards of a gentleman, while our accused midshipmen have no such reproach against them."
"Then your midshipmen are to get off, and to be encouraged to repeat such conduct?" demanded the spokesman of the Crane party.
"No. On the contrary, they will be punished for whatever breaches of Naval discipline they have committed. Considering what you gentlemen have admitted, however, I do not believe you would have any standing as witnesses before a court-martial. I therefore advise you all to drop your complaint. Yet if you insist on a complaint, then I will see to it that Midshipman Totten is brought to trial."
Crane and his a.s.sociates felt, very quickly and keenly, that they would cut but sorry figures in such a trial. They therefore begged to withdraw their former complaint. When they had departed the superintendent smiled at his reflection in the gla.s.s opposite.
Before supper all of the midshipmen involved knew their fate. They were restored to full liberty. Darrin, Dalzell and Joyce were again rebuked for having taken such elaborate pains to escape recognizing Totten at the time of the encounter. Beyond the lecture by the commandant of midshipmen, each of the trio was further punished by the imposition of ten demerits.
In Frenching and in taking justice into his own hands Midshipman Totten was held to have erred. However, the nature of his grievance and the fact that he was only a new fourth cla.s.sman were taken into consideration. For Frenching he was punished with twenty-five demerits; for the a.s.sault on a civilian, considering all the circ.u.mstances, he was let off with ten additional demerits.
Yet, somehow, all of the midshipmen involved felt their punishment very lightly. They could not escape the conviction that the Naval Academy authorities did not regard them as especially guilty offenders.
"We"ve got you back on the gridiron, at any rate," exclaimed Hepson exultantly. "We of the football squad wish that we might be permitted to divide your demerits up among ourselves."
"You might suggest that little point to the commandant of midshipmen,"
grinned Dan.
"And get jolly well trounced for our impudence," grimaced Midshipman Hepson. "No, thank you; though you criminals have our utmost sympathy, we will let matters rest where they are at present. Only a fool tries to change well enough into worse."
CHAPTER XV
THE NAVY GOAT WEEPS
"Did you hear that Ella had a bad tumble down three stories?" asked Midshipman Dan.
"Ella who?" questioned Dave, looking up.
"Elevator!" grinned Dalzell.
"Ugh!" grunted Dave disgustedly. "Say, do you know how that would strike the com.?"
"No," replied Dan innocently, looking away. "How would it strike him?"
"Hard!" Dave responded. Slam! The somewhat heavy book that Darrin, aimed went straight to the mark, landing against Dan"s nearer ear with all the force of a sound boxing.
"I see you appreciate a good joke," muttered Dalzell grimly.
"Yes," Dave admitted. "Do you?"
"When I tell you another," growled Dan, "I"ll be holding an axe hidden behind my back."
"Say, did I show you that letter of d.i.c.k"s?" Dave asked, looking up presently.
"Appendix?" inquired Dan suspiciously.
"Oh, stow all that, little boy!" retorted Dave. "No; did I tell you that I had a letter from d.i.c.k Prescott?"
"I think you mentioned something of the sort, last winter," Dalzell admitted still suspicious.
"No; I got one this morning from good old d.i.c.k," Darrin went on.
"All right," Dan agreed. "What"s the answer?"
"I haven"t had time to read it yet," Darrin responded. "But here"s the letter. Maybe you"d like to look it over."
Across the study table Dan Dalzell received the envelope and its enclosure rather gingerly. Dan didn"t like to be caught "biting" at a "sell," and he still expected some trick from his roommate.
It was, however, a letter written in d.i.c.k Prescott"s well-remembered handwriting.
"I understand that you are both on the Navy team, and that you made good in the first game," wrote the West Point cadet. "I hope you"ll both stay in to the finish, and improve with every game. Greg and I are plugging hard at the game in the little time that the West Point routine allows us for practice. From what I have heard of your game, I think it likely that you and good, but impish old Dan, are playing against the very position that Greg and I hope to hold in the annual Army-Navy game.
Won"t it be great?"
"Yes, it will be great, all right, if the Navy contrives to win," Dan muttered, looking up at his chum.
"Either the Army or Navy must lose," replied Dave quietly.
"And just think!" Cadet d.i.c.k Prescott"s letter ran on. "When we meet, lined up for battle on Franklin Field, Philadelphia, it will be the first time we four have met since we wound up the good old High School days at Gridley. It seems an age to Greg and me. I wonder if the time seems as long to you two?"
"It seems to me," remarked Dan, glancing across at his chum, "that you and I, David, little giant, have been here at Annapolis almost ever since we first donned trousers to please the family."
"It is a long time back to Gridley days," a.s.sented Darrin.
Then Dan went on reading.
"Of course you and Dan are bound that the Navy shall win this year," d.i.c.k had written. "As for Greg and me, we are equally determined that the Army shall win. As if the resolutions on either side had much of anything to do with it! It will seem strange for us four, divided between the two sides, to be fighting frantically for the victory. However, if Greg and I go up against you two on the gridiron we won"t show you any mercy, and we know that we shall receive none from you. Each man must do all that"s possibly in him for the glory of his own side of the United Service!
Here"s to the better eleven--Army or Navy!"
"I"ll bet d.i.c.k and Greg will give us all the tussle they know how, if they get near us in the fight," nodded Dan, pa.s.sing the letter back.
"Well, they"re bound to, aren"t they?" demanded Darrin. "And now, Danny boy, we simply must stow all gab and get busy with our lessons. We"ve a recitation between now and the afternoon practice."
"And the game, to-morrow!" breathed Midshipman Dalzell fervently.
The morrow"s game was to be against the University of Pennsylvania eleven. The opposition team being an unusually good one that year, the Navy"s gridiron pets were preparing to strain every nerve in the hope of victory.
In that afternoon"s practice Dave and Dan showed up better than ever.
Farley and Page, too, were coming along splendidly, while Midshipman Joyce was proving himself all but a joy to exacting Hepson.
But when the morrow came U.P. carried away the game to the tune of five to nothing, and the Navy goat wept. Dave and Dan made several brilliant plays, but the Navy average both of size and skill was somewhat below that of the older, bigger college men.
Other games followed fast now, and the Navy eleven and its subs. had plenty of work cut out for them. Up to the time of the Army-Navy game, the middies had a bright slate of eighty per cent. of victories. Dave and Dan had the pleasure of reading, in the "Army and Navy Journal," that they were considered the strongest men on the left flank that the Navy had been, able to show in ten years.
"When we go up against the Army," Hepson informed Dave and Dan, "I don"t know whether you"ll play at left or right. It will all depend on where the Army puts Prescott and Holmes. Friends of ours who have watched the play at West Point tell me that Prescott and Holmes are armored terrors on the gridiron."