"What ails you fellows?" rebuked Dave Darrin. "The man who passed us was a sure-enough lieutenant in the Navy."
"Him?" demanded Midshipman Dalzell, startled out of his grip on
English grammar. "A lieutenant? That—-that—-kid?"
"He's a lieutenant of the Navy, all right," Dave insisted.
"You're wrong," challenged Page. "Don't you know, Dave, that a man must be at least twenty-one years old in order to hold an officer's commission in the Navy?"
"That man who received our salutes is a Naval, officer," Dave retorted. "I don't know anything about his age."
"Why, that little boy can't be a day over seventeen," gasped Dan
Dalzell. "Anyway, fellows, I'm overjoyed that you all saw him!
That takes a load off my mind as to my mental condition."
"Whoever he is, he's a Navy officer, and he has trod the bridge in many a gale," contended Dave. "Small and young as he looks, that man had otherwise every bit of the proper appearance of a Navy officer."
"What a joke it will be on you," grinned Page, "when you find the watchman dragging the little fellow away to turn over to the doctors from the asylum!"
The midshipmen were on their way to report for afternoon football work. As they had started a few minutes early, and had time to spare, they had now halted on the way, and were standing on the sidewalk in front of the big and handsome barracks building.
"Can you fellows still use your eyes?" Dave wanted to know. "If you can, look toward the steps of Bancroft."