"Do you say that to every girl?" she asked.
"I don't get many chances," Dan insisted. "Miss Atterly, all the hops that I've attended could be counted on your fingers, without using the thumbs?"
"Oh, really?"
"It is the truth, I assure you. Some of the midshipmen attend many hops. Most of us are too busy over our studies as a rule."
"Then you prefer books to the society of girls?"
"It isn't that," replied Dan, growing somewhat red under Miss Atterly's amused scrutiny. "The fact is that a fellow comes here to the Naval Academy for the purpose of becoming an officer in the Navy."
"To be sure."
"And, unless the average fellow hugs his books tightly he doesn't have any show to get through and become an officer. There are some fellows, of course, to whom the studies come easily. With most of us it's a terrible grind. Even with the grind about forty per cent. of the fellows who enter the Naval Academy are found deficient and are dropped. If you are interested in knowing, I had a fearful time in keeping up with the requirements."
"Oh, you poor boy!" cried Miss Atterly half tenderly.
"I never felt that I wanted any sympathy," Dan declared stoutly. "If I couldn't keep up, then the only thing to do was to go back to civil life and find my own level among my own kind."