! I'm going to write,
now, for the money to get home with. You know, in the last two affairs,
the hazers have been dismissed from the Naval Academy."

"Yes," Dave nodded. "It looks black for us. But keep a stiff tipper lip,
Danny boy."

"It's all my own miserable fault!" uttered Dalzell, clenching his fists,
while tears tried to get into his eyes. "You've got me to blame for this,
Davy! It was all my doing. I insisted on dragging you down to that room,
and now you've got to walk the plank, all because of my foolishness! Oh,
I'm a hoodoo!"

"Stop that, Danny!" warned Dave, resting a hand on his chum's arm. "I
didn't have to go, and you couldn't have made me do it. I wouldn't have
gone if I hadn't wanted to. I'm not going to let even you rest the blame
for my conduct on your shoulders."

Finally the chums went to study table.

"What's the use!" demanded Dan, closing a book after he had opened it.
"We don't need to study. We've got to walk the plank, at any rate, and
all the study we do here for the next day or two is so much time wasted!"

"We may walk the plank," retorted Dave. "In fact, I feel rather certain
that we shall. But it hasn't happened yet Danny boy, open that book
again, and open it at the right page. Study until recall, and work
harder than you ever did before. You know all about that old-time Navy
man who said, 'Don't give up the ship!'"

They studied, or manfully pretended to, until release sounded. How
much they learned from their books that night may have been a
different matter.

CHAPTER XXIV

CONCLUSION

By the next day it was generally conceded among the midshipmen that the
ranks of the brigade were about to be thinned as a result of the last
hazing episode. Nor did the third class generally uphold Eaton and his
youngster associates in the affair of the night before.

"They were out for trouble, and they got it," declared one third
classman. "The rest of us let up on all hazing before Christmas."

In some underground way Farley and Page heard the straight story
concerning Dave and Dan; how the two upper classmen had gone to the room
and Darrin had entered a mild protest against the hazing.

Though it was against regulations to visit them confined to their
quarters, Farley took the chance and got a few words with Dave.

"Darry, don't let anyone trim you for what you didn't do," begged
Midshipman Farley. "Go straight to the com.; tell him that you and Dan
had just entered the r