"Well?" "You don't suppose Belle will say anything about this back in Gridley, do you? By Jove, if she does I'd feel----- "You'll feel something else," warned Dave snappily, "if you don't at once assure me that you know Belle too well to think that she'd make light of your misfortunes." "But sometimes girls tell one another some things-----" "Belle Meade doesn't," interrupted Dave so briskly that Dalzell, after a glance, agreed: "You're right there, David, little giant. I've known Belle ever since we were kids at the Central Grammar School. If Belle ever got into any trouble through too free use of her tongue, then I never heard anything about it." "Dan, do you want a fine suggestion about the employment of the rest of your liberty time while we're at Annapolis?" "Yes." "You remember Barnes's General History, that we used to have in Grammar school?" "Yes." "Devote your liberty time to reading the book through again." CHAPTER XXI IN THE THICK OF DISASTER Examination week---torture of the "wooden" and seventh heaven of the "savvy!" For the wooden man, he who knows little, this week of final examinations is a period of unalloyed torture. He must go before an array of professors who are there to expose his ignorance. No "wooden" man can expect to get by. The gates of hope are closed before his face. He marches to the ordeal, full of a dull misery. Whether he is fourth classman or first, he knows that hope has fled; that he will go below the saving 2.5 mark and be dropped from the rolls. But your "savvy" midshipman---he who knows much, and who is sure and confident with his knowledge, finds this week of final examinations a period of bliss and pride. He is going to "pass"; he knows that, and nothing else matters. Eight o'clock every morning, during this week, finds the midshipman in one recitation room or another, undergoing his final. As it is not the purpose of the examiners to wear any man out, the afternoon is given over to pleasures. There are no afternoon examinations, and no work of any sort that can be avoided. Indeed, the "savvy" man has a week of most delightful afternoons, with teas, lawn parties, strolls both within and without the walls of the Academy grounds, and many boating parties. It is in examination week that the young ladies flock to Annapolis in greater numbers than ever. Sometimes the "wooden" midshipman, knowing there is no further hope for him, rushes madly into the pleasures of this week, determined to carry back into civil life with him the memories of as many Annapolis pleasures as possible. A strong smattering there is of midshipmen who, by no means "savvy," are yet not so "wooden" but that they hope, by hard study at the last to pull through on a saving margin in marks.