"Is that really your idea of the matter?" asked one of the gray-clad cadets.
"So Mr. Fields has said," Dave answered.
"But what do you say?"
"About the most that I feel like saying," Darrin answered as quietly as ever, "is that the Navy prefers to do its bragging afterwards."
"An excellent practice," nodded one of the cadets. "You've acquired the habit through experience, I presume. It has saved your having to swallow a lot of your words on many occasions."
All laughed good-naturedly. Though there was the most intense rivalry between the two government military schools, yet all were gentlemen, and the fun-making could not be permitted to go beyond the limits of ordinary teasing.
"What's your line-up?" broke in Dan Dalzell.
"Haven't you fellows gotten hold of the cards yet?" asked one of the West Point men. "Then take a look over mine."
Standing together Dave and Dan eagerly glanced down the printed line-up of the Military Academy.
"I know a few of these names," ventured Darrin, "and they're the names of good men. Several of the other names I don't know at all. And you've left out the names of the two Army men that we're most afraid of in a game of football."