Then the innate deviltry of the juvenile tar asserted itself, and a look of mischief flashed from eye to eye, a sort of telegraphy, which said:
“Here’s fun for us.”
They saw before them a bronze-faced youth of seventeen, perhaps, with a splendidly knit frame, clad in spotless duck trousers, a sailor shirt, beneath the wide collar of which a black silk scarf was knotted, and a tarpaulin cocked on the side of his head in a kind of devil-I-care way.
“Have you the oysters the commandant ordered?” asked Midshipman Dillingham, with a look of intense innocence.
The dark face of the young sailor flushed, but he responded with dignity:
“My name is Mark Merrill, and I have orders to report here to be examined for the berth of midshipman in the United States Navy.”
CHAPTER VIII.
A RUMOR AFLOAT.
There was quite a stir at the naval school, for a strange rumor was afloat.
“Some one” had said that one of the officers had said that there was to be a new cadet at the academy, appointed under peculiar circumstances; that is, he had no political status environing him.