Ralph Osborn, Midshipman at Annapolis: A Story of Life at the U.S. Naval Academy

by Edward L. Beach

When Ralph had finished the fourth question, he felt his chair kicked again, and then the whispered words:

“Let me have your papers for a moment. No one will see. The lieutenant is in the other end of the room. I’ll give you one hundred dollars if you’ll let me look at them.”

Ralph turned squarely around and deliberately eyed the young man who had made this dishonorable proposal. He was silent a moment and then in a low tone said: “How much did you pay for the examination you had stolen for you, you scoundrel? Speak to me again and I’ll report you.”

Short’s whole body trembled, and fierce hatred shone from his moody eyes. In his whole life he had never received such a defeat and such contemptuous treatment. His feelings were almost beyond his small powers of endurance, and this state of feeling was aggravated by a feeling of utter powerlessness. After that he made no further effort to speak to Ralph, and he was too far from the other candidates, and was also afraid to try to attract their attention.

Short tried to work but only made poor headway. Even had he been in a good humor he could not have passed the examination.

Ralph found the problems all easy and made rapid progress. After a while Short left his seat and approached the lieutenant in charge and asked him some trivial question. In returning, as he passed Ralph’s desk his eyes looked at the number 153, painted in white letters on the front of it, and a gleam of satisfaction passed over his face. “I’ll fix that fellow, the hound, if he leaves this room before I do,” he remarked to himself. After that Short worked fitfully, occasionally glancing up at Ralph. He noticed with much approval that Ralph apparently finished his work an hour before the time allowed had expired, and was impatient when Ralph started to read his papers over, deliberately stopping at some places to make corrections.

Half an hour before the time was up a number of the candidates had finished and were leaving the examination room. Ralph was one of these. He folded his papers neatly, placed them on one side of his desk, and left the room entirely confident he had passed the examination.

As soon as Ralph Osborn had left the room Short began to arrange his papers, and started to number each sheet. The number of his desk was 155, but instead of writing this number on the pages of his work, he wrote on each of them the number 153, which he had seen on Ralph’s desk. He then gathered his papers together and walked to the lieutenant in charge. “Shall I sign my name at the bottom?” he asked.

“No, number each page with your desk number,” was the reply.

Short returned to his desk, but just as he reached Ralph’s desk he apparently stumbled, and for a moment rested both of his hands on it, still holding his own papers. In doing this he attracted no one’s attention, but when he had straightened up he had Ralph’s papers in his hand. He had quickly substituted his own for Ralph’s papers and the papers left on Ralph’s desk, though numbered 153, were in reality Short’s. Short now carefully erased the upper part of the figure three, of the number 153, on each page of Ralph’s papers, and made a five out of it. He then carefully and neatly arranged these papers on his desk, and with an exultant feeling of success and gratified revenge, he left the room. He knew his own papers would never pass him, and rightly judged from the rapid way in which Ralph had worked that the latter would be successful.