Now, in the good old halcyon days at the Academy we used to convert our language phonographs into roulette wheels, and in recreation hours--and not infrequently in study hours--gamble for requisitions. We agreed that all the fellows who should be "ousted" from the Academy should be paid cash, if winner, as the "reqs" would be useless to them. Our room was raided by upper class men one day, and the thing found out, but as the midshipman in charge was certain of "bilging" himself, he didn't report us, but simply gave us unofficial hell instead. Well, when the game was broken up, a certain Rogers of Cincinnati, Ohio, was in debt to yours truly to the extent of twenty-five dollars. I made a hurried departure from Annapolis, and furthermore I didn't care to mention such a then trifling thing to Rogers, as I had between five and six hundred dollars. Well, you know how we arranged it--went to Pittsburg, then to Chicago, and due principally to your good management, we never got to the stage where I had to ask for it. Every letter Hardin wrote me how he really believed Rogers meant to pay, and all that sort of thing. To make a long story brief, Rogers never was man enough to offer to close the little "debt of honor," and I was too proud to ask him. When leaving Huron, though, I wrote him a letter asking him to send it, in part or in full, to Omaha, Nebraska; I depended on his honor and started out. Went to Sioux City, Iowa, on a cattle pass and left most of my capital there. When I took an account of my coin, found that I possessed less than three dollars, and the fare to Omaha was three dollars and fifteen cents. I went to the Bureau of Information, and found that I could go to Blair, Neb., for amount on hand. Accordingly, I paid passage to Blair, trusting to luck to catch a freight train out of Blair, and I figured that even if this failed I could walk it, the distance being only twenty-four miles. Arriving at Blair, broke, I slept in the depot over-night--Christmas Eve--think of it! Woke up Christmas Day without a cent, and feeling like the wrath of God. Oh, yes, it was a merry, merry Christmas. Finding that no freight trains were running on account of holiday. I soliloquized, "Well, William B. Anderson, ex-midshipman, United States Navy, it's up to you to make the best of your way via 'the hoof' to Omaha, so get thee busy at once." I knew, or thought I knew, I would find a money order for twenty-five dollars there. Arrived in Omaha about dusk, footsore and weary, and went at once to the P. O., only to find to my intense anger and chagrin that it was "Closed on Account of Holiday."