would be better," smiled Darrin, "if you're anxious
to escape another handful of demerits."

By the time that the football squad began to assemble on the football
field, Dan and his friends found that some of the midshipmen were
full of information about the famous Submarine Boys. Readers
who may not be familiar with the careers of Lieutenant Jack Benson,
Ensign Hal Hastings, and Ensign Eph Somers are referred to the
volumes of the _Submarine Boys' Series_. In _"The Submarine Boys
and the Middies"_ will be found the account of the hazing that Jack,
Hal and Eph had received at the hands of midshipmen.

Benson and his two friends, with a crew of four men, were now at
the Naval Academy, having arrived at two o'clock that afternoon,
for the purpose of giving the first classmen instruction aboard
the latest Pollard submarine, the "Dodger."

But play was called, and that stopped, for the time being, all talk
about the Submarine Boys.

CHAPTER VIII

THE PRIZE TRIP ON THE "DODGER"

The following afternoon, at the hour for instruction in the machine
shops, the entire first class was marched down to the basin, where
the "Dodger" lay. Squad by squad the midshipmen were taken on
board the odd-looking little craft that was more at home beneath
the waves than on them.

While the exact place and scale of importance of submarine war
craft has not been determined as yet, boats of the Pollard type
are certainly destined to play a tremendously important part in
the Naval wars of the future. Hence all of the midshipmen were
deeply interested in what they saw and were told.

Some of these first classmen were twenty-four years of age, others
from twenty to twenty-two. Hence, with many of them, there was
some slight undercurrent of feeling over the necessity for taking
instruction from such very youthful instructors as Jack Benson,
Hal Hastings and Eph Somers.

Had any of this latter trio been inclined to put on airs there
might have been some disagreeable feeling engendered in the breasts
of some of the middies. But Jack and his associates were wholly
modest, pleasant and helpful.

Beginning on the following day, it was announced, the "Dodger"
would take a squad of six midshipmen down Chesapeake Bay for practical
instruction in submarine work, both above and below the surface
of the water. This instruction would continue daily, with squads
of six midshipmen on board, until all members of the first class
had rece