It was a Saturday night, early in October. The new academic year
at the Naval Academy was but a week old. There being no "hop"
that night the members of the brigade had their time to spend
as they pleased. Some of the young men would need the time sadly
to put in at their new studies. Dave, fortunately, did not feel
under any necessity to spend his leisure in grinding over text-books.

Dave glanced at his study desk, though he barely saw the pile of
text-books neatly piled up there.

"No letters to write tonight," he thought "I was going to loan
Danny boy one of my two new novels. No matter; if he'd rather visit
let him do so."

In the short interval of recreation that had followed the evening
meal Dave had missed his home chum and roommate, but had thought
nothing of it. Nor was Dave now really disappointed over the
present prospect of having an hour or two by himself. He went
to a one-shelf book rack high overhead and pulled down one of
his two recent novels.

"If I want Danny boy at any time I fancy I have only to step as
far as Page's room," mused Dave, as he seated himself by his desk.

An hour slipped by without interruption. An occasional burst
of laughter floated down the corridor. At some distance away,
on the same deck of barracks in Bancroft Hall, a midshipman was
industriously twanging away on a banjo. Darrin, however, absorbed
in his novel, paid no heed to any of the signs of Saturday-night
jollity. He was a third of the way through an exciting tale when