"I got ninety per cent.," Eric answered. "I thought I'd told you all about it. No, I guess it came off when you were on one of your trips. I don't go much on boasting, Father, but I really can swim."
"Well, my boy," the other said, "I'll take a little credit for that. Don't forget I was your first swimming teacher! But I couldn't do all those things you've been telling me about, now. I'm glad to know they've got as high a standard as that in the Volunteer Corps. I shouldn't wonder if the Coast Guard would be able to get some of its best men from the volunteer ranks. Take yourself, for example."
"It's done me a lot of good," said the boy.
"Of course it has. It would do anybody good. But I've been wanting to ask you, Eric, what effect the formation of this new Coast Guard will have on your plans?"
"It won't hurt them a bit," the boy answered. "I wrote to the Captain Commandant about it and he sent me the dandiest letter! I'll show it to you when my trunk gets home. You see, Father, when the Life-Saving Service and the Revenue Cutter Service joined together under the name of the Coast Guard, it was arranged that every member of both services might reenlist without examination. And my application was in last year. So that there's nothing special, I'm just going through the regular order of things. That is, if I can make the Coast Guard Academy."
"You ought to manage it, I think," said his father. "I'm really glad you have made up your mind to it, Eric," he continued; "it's a good full-size man's job. And you have quite a bit of the salt in your veins, my lad, for, after all, most of your kin are seafaring folk."
"You never had anything to do with the old Revenue Cutter Service, had you, Father?"
"I was never a member of it," the other replied, "but I've seen it at work, many times these forty years. No, I got into the Lighthouse Service when I was about your age and I've given every bit of myself to it ever since. I'm glad I did. I think the last fifty years has shown the greatest development of safety at sea since the days of the discovery of the compass."
"Yet you didn't want me to join!"
"Not now," the old inspector answered. "Conditions have changed. The Lighthouse Service of to-day is a complete and perfected organization. Every mile of United States territory is covered by a beacon light. We were pioneers."