An Annapolis First Classman

"Hello, Stone! Hello, Bob! By George, but I'm glad to see you!"

"Hello, Glass, you old sinner, I can just imagine you've led those dear old aunts of yours a lively life the last two weeks."

"You'll win, Stone, but you ought to get them to tell you about it; ha, ha, ha! the dear old ladies never dropped once."

Explosively enthusiastic greetings were exchanged between three stalwart young men in the Union Station, Chicago, on the twentieth of September, of the year nineteen hundred and something. Passers-by noticed them and smiled, and in approving accents said, "College boys!" All three were tall, broad-shouldered, bronzed in face, and possessed a lithesomeness of movement that betokened health and strength.

Glassfell, Drake and Stonewell were midshipmen on leave from the United States Naval Academy. It was evident that they had met in the Union Station by appointment. Glassfell had just arrived from Wisconsin, and Drake and Stonewell were to leave in two hours for Annapolis.

"You two chaps are martyrs!" exclaimed Glassfell; "here you are giving up ten days of glorious leave just to go and train for the football team. Now here I am, cheer leader, head yeller, or whatever you call me, far more important than either of you, you'll admit, and I'm not due at Annapolis until October first."

"'Daily News,' last edition," droned a newsboy near by.

"Don't bother me, boy; Chicago news doesn't interest me. Some new sandbagging on Wabash Avenue, I suppose, and nothing else. Get out."

"A fine cruise, wasn't it, Glass?" remarked Robert Drake. "By George! I'd had some troubles on my previous cruises, but this went like clockwork; not a single thing happened to worry me, and I certainly had troubles enough on my plebe and youngster cruises."

"You did indeed, Bob," remarked Stonewell, "but you'll have to admit you were fortunate in the wind up. Now Glass, here——"

"'Daily News,' last edition," was shouted close to their ears.

"Stuff that boy. Put a corn-cob down his throat," said Glassfell with an amused glance at the persistent newsboy. "Say, fellows, wasn't that a good one I worked on old 'I mean to say'? Ha, ha, ha!"