"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