“He is very kind, my son, and I believe the plan is a good one, as well as yours to run the lumber to Norfolk, only you must give yourself ample time, so we will begin preparations to-morrow.” This was done, for Mark sailed down the coast to the home of Captain Jasper Crane, who dwelt near where the Merrills had first lived when coming to the coast, and the old sailor and his sons were delighted with a prospect of getting work to their liking. Two weeks after the Venture, for such was the name of the derelict schooner, set sail for Norfolk, Captain Crane declaring that he would serve as first mate while Mark was on board. The run south was made in good time, and the lumber brought sufficient to pay the crew liberally and return to Mrs. Merrill several hundred dollars, while Mark took sufficient for his own needs, and enough to pay his debt to Commodore Lucien. The rush of the Venture up the Severn River in a gale, with Mark at the helm, whose masterly work won the admiration of the middies, and we will now follow the young sailor into the new world he had entered. Mark had politely given his name to the cadets, and asked the question as to how he would find the commandant, expecting a civil response. But here was a novelty for the fun-loving cadets. Against all custom a new man had arrived in his own craft by sea. He had given them ocular demonstration that he was not a greenhorn on the deck of a vessel, whatever he might be in other things. He came dressed as gorgeously as Ralph Rackstraw of H. M. S. Pinafore, and he had not been abashed in the presence of their marine highnesses. This was all wrong, very wrong, in their eyes. What right had a new man to know the stem from the stern, the forecastle from the quarter-deck of a vessel, when entering the academy? He came there to find out, to be taught, and he must start on even terms with all other verdant youths. He attacked the academy from the sea, boarded, as it were, the sacred grounds over their marine stone bulwarks, giving the sentry at the gate the go-by, ignoring the existence of the officer of the day, and, confronting them with a natty tarpaulin set upon the side of his head, with spotless duck trousers, a sailor shirt with embroidered collar, and a sash about his slender waist, had coolly said that his name was Mark Merrill, and he wished to be directed to the quarters of the commandant. This was too much for Winslow Dillingham, who took it upon himself to play the part of “Smart Aleck,” and he looked the stranger over with a cool, insolent stare, and said, in a drawling way: “Beg pardon, but you said your name was Jack Hayseed, I believe?” “I said that my name was Mark Merrill, and asked to be directed to the quarters of the commandant,” and Mark kept his temper admirably. “Well, Mr. Pork Barrell, for such, I believe you said your name was, I will answer for the commandant that he wants no fish to-day.”