Mrs. Meade and Dave's parents now entered the room, and soon after Danny Grin, who had gone in search of his own father and mother, returned with them.
"What are we going to do now?" asked Mr. Darrin. "I understand that we have hours to wait for the next train."
"We can't do much, sir," replied Dave. "Within another hour this will be the deadest town in the United States."
"I should think you young men would want to spend most of the intervening time down at the Naval Academy, looking over the familiar spots once more," suggested Mrs. Dalzell.
"Then I'm afraid, mother, that you don't realize much of the way that a midshipman feels. The Naval Academy is our alma mater, and a beloved spot. Yet, after what I've been through there during the last few years I don't want to see the Naval Academy again. At least, not until I've won a solid step or two in the way of promotion."
"That's the feeling of all the graduates, I reckon," nodded Dave
Darrin. "For one, I know I don't want to go back there to-day."
"Some day you will go back there, though," observed Danny Grin.
"Why are you so sure?" Dave asked.
"Well, you were always such a stickler for observing the rules that the Navy Department will have to send you there for some post or other. Probably you'll go back as a discipline officer."
"I would have one advantage over you, then, wouldn't I?" laughed Darrin. "If I had to rebuke a midshipman I could do it with a more serious face than you could."