"Very well," replied his father, turning again to his work; "pack up and be ready to leave in the morning. We’ll take the ten o’clock express." "Good-night, Dad, and thank you," said Dick simply. "Good-night, Dick," answered Mr. Comstock, without looking up, consequently he failed to see the lingering look the boy gave the familiar scene before him, as if bidding it a silent last "good-night." For Dick was drinking in each detail of the room as if trying to fix its every feature indelibly in his memory. At breakfast next morning he was more quiet than his mother had ever known him, and both she and his sister Ursula were surprised to see the tears fill his eyes when he kissed them. "I never knew you to be such a big baby, Dick," said Ursula. "If you feel so bad about leaving us why did you ask Father to take you on for a visit with Cousin Ella?" Although Dick had not said that this was his object in going away, it was a natural inference on Ursula’s part, and as he vouchsafed no reply to the contrary she consequently watched him depart with a light heart. In the crowded train Mr. Comstock and Richard succeeded finally in getting a seat to themselves, and while his father finished reading the morning paper, Dick spent his time in looking out the car window at the familiar sights along the road. But before long he was talking earnestly. "Dad, I’ve decided what I want to do," he began, "but I can’t do it unless I get your consent." "What’s on your mind, son?" said Mr. Comstock, folding his paper and smiling at the boy beside him. "Go ahead and I will pay close attention." "If I went to Annapolis," Dick observed, "I’d finish my course there at the age of twenty-one, shouldn’t I?" "Yes, the course is four years at the Naval Academy." "It would be the same if I went to West Point. In other words, by the time I was twenty-one years old I would, if successful at either institution, be either an ensign or a second lieutenant, as the case might be!" "Quite true," remarked Mr. Comstock, still unable to comprehend where this preliminary fencing was leading. "Have you ever heard of the United States Marine Corps?" asked Dick after the silence of a second or two.