The afternoon questions seemed to be much harder than those of the morning. The students were given until five o’clock to pass in their afternoon papers, and never did Dave and Roger work harder than they did during the final hour. One question in particular bothered our hero a great deal. But at almost the last minute the answer to it came like an inspiration, and he dashed it down. This question proved a poser for the senator’s son, and he passed in his paper without attempting to put down a solution.
Following that examination, Dave returned to Crumville. Roger journeyed to Washington, where his folks were staying at a leading hotel, Congress being in session and Senator Morr occupying his place in the Senate.
There was a week of anxious waiting, and then one day Dave received an official-looking envelope which made his heart beat rapidly.
“What is it, Dave?” cried his sister, when she saw him with the letter in his hand. “Is it your civil engineering report?”
“I think it is, Laura,” he answered.
“Oh, Dave, how I hope you’ve passed!”
“So do I,” put in Jessie.
Dave could not give an answer to this, because, for the moment, his heart seemed to be in his 179 throat. Passing to the desk in the library, he slit open the envelope and took out the sheet which it contained. A single glance at it, and he gave a shout of triumph.
“I’ve passed!” he cried. “Hurrah!”
“Oh, good!” came simultaneously from his sister and Jessie. And then they crowded closer to look at the sheet of paper.