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"Certainly," I answered, "I would back her against any other vessel on the station for being in the highest state of efficiency." "I'm glad you think so, Gerald," he said to me aside, so that the middies who went to man the side ropes for the admiral at the gangway could not hear him.
At this point three more West Point men approached. "Hey, fellows," called Fields good-humoredly. "Do you know of an impression that I find to prevail among the middies to-day?" "What is that?" inquired one of the gray-clad cadets, as the newcomers joined the group. "Why, the middies seem to think that they're going to take the Army's scalp to-day."
At first sight of the visitors, some of the Navy people began to have their doubts about victory. The Hannistons surely were "bulky." In size and age, the visitors were as formidable as any of the college elevens. Many of the midshipmen, too, recalled what they had heard Waite say at table. It seemed little wonder that the popular odds were against the middies.
Port for men, claret for boys, cried Dr. Johnson. Even so, men only should drink the strong drink of travel; boys should still be kept on milk and water at home. Middies! you may despise your mother's leading-strings, but they are the man-ropes my lads, by which many youngsters have steadied the giddiness of youth, and saved themselves from lamentable falls.
It was one of those dream-like days in late autumn, when the earth, still decked in her brilliant garments, seems to lie spellbound in the sunshine, as if there were no such thing as the coming of winter. The girls, clad in blue skirts and white middies and heavy sweaters, were whirled down to the dock in the Evans's automobile, with the Keewaydin tied upright at the back.
Two middies talking in the stern-sheets of the cutter belonging to Her Majesty's fast little cruiser Nautilus, stationed on the west coast of Africa "blackberrying," so the men called their duty, Tom Fillot, one of their jokers, giving as the reason that the job was "black and berry nasty."
As for the middies and us cadets, we had to draw lots to decide who should go and who stop behind; but, at the last moment, the commander gave permission for us all to go, save Andrews, who had been impertinent to the first lieutenant in the afternoon and was ordered to remain in the ship.
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.
One consideration, I own, mortified me this was that the natives did not appear to admire me half so much as I admired myself. It never occurred to me then, that middies were as plentiful at Plymouth Dock, as black boys at Port Royal, though, perhaps, not of so much value to their masters.
The best that the leader of the band could do, was to swing his baton and start in the strains of "'Twas Never Thus in Olden Times." "What do you make of the enemy, Hepson?" inquired Joyce, as the middies rested at the side lines. "We haven't made anything of them yet, but we've got to make wrecks of 'em before the last half is over," grunted the captain of the Navy.
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