"Why, you are with us yet, and of us!" cried the principal. "I carry your names on the rolls, with 'excused' written against your names. If you don't believe that you're still of my High School boys, then drop in any day and take your places, for an hour, or as long as you please, at your old desks. You will find them still reserved for you."
"Now, isn't that mighty decent of old Prin.!" demanded Dave, after the two chums had thanked Dr. Thornton, and had gone on their way. "So we still belong to old Gridley High School?"
"We always shall, I reckon," declared Dick. "Gridley High School has done everything for us, and has given us our start and most of our pleasures in life."
"I'm going to drop in, one of these January days," murmured Dave.
"And so am I. But," added Dick, with a smile, "don't let us be indiscreet and be roped into going into a recitation. We'll find the class has been moving ahead while we've been boning over West Point and Annapolis requirements."
"At all events, none of them ought to be ahead of us when we've gone four years further," contended Dave. "At West Point or Annapolis we have to grind in a way that is never required of mere college men. We ought to be miles ahead of any fellow who has just finished at High School and then has put in four years only at college."
Thus the happy young egotists always talked, nowadays. To them there was really little in life that did not come through the government military academies.
Phin Drayne, lounging about purposely, with the shambling gait, often saw these happy chums, and scowled after them.
"Everything seems to come to them!" growled Phin. "What rot it is to say that this is a square world, and that everyone has the same chance! Why doesn't something good come my way?"
The oftener Phin looked in the direction of the chums, and more particularly of Dick, the blacker did Drayne's thoughts become.