“The grandest Christmas present.  I ever had!” muttered Dick, gazing at the single sheet, the words on which were couched in stiff official language.

Dave Darrin fumed a good deal, for it was nearly a month later before he received his notification from the Secretary of the Navy.  It came at last, however, and Darrin knew what postponed happiness means.

CHAPTER XXII

The Message from the Unknown

With the Christmas holidays Phin Drayne came home, to stay so far as school was concerned.

After his unhappy experience at the Fordham Military Institute, Phin had found things almost as unpleasant at Wilburville Academy.

For some reason the boys at Wilburville hadn’t taken to him.  Phin had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t appreciated anywhere save at home, so back he came, disgusted with the idea of carrying his education any further.

As a natural sequence, Drayne took to lounging about the streets.  High School boys and girls no longer paid any heed to him, so he did not fear slight or insult.

Two nights in every week Dick and Dave went faithfully to the High School gym. to help Mr. Morton with the new evening classes in training.

One afternoon Prescott and Darrin encountered good old Dr. Thornton, the principal, who asked them how they were coming along.

“We’re pretty busy,” Dick admitted.  “Still, it does seem rather hard to us not to be connected with the High School any more.”

“Why, you are with us yet, and of us!” cried the principal.  “I carry your names on the rolls, with ‘excused’ written against your names.  If you don’t believe that you’re still of my High School boys, then drop in any day and take your places, for an hour, or as long as you please, at your old desks.  You will find them still reserved for you.”

“Now, isn’t that mighty decent of old Prin.!” demanded Dave, after the two chums had thanked Dr. Thornton, and had gone on their way.  “So we still belong to old Gridley High School?”

“We always shall, I reckon,” declared Dick.  “Gridley High School has done everything for us, and has given us our start and most of our pleasures in life.”

“I’m going to drop in, one of these January days,” murmured Dave.

“And so am I. But,” added Dick, with a smile, “don’t let us be indiscreet and be roped into going into a recitation.  We’ll find the class has been moving ahead while we’ve been boning over West Point and Annapolis requirements.”

“At all events, none of them ought to be ahead of us when we’ve gone four years further,” contended Dave.  “At West Point or Annapolis we have to grind in a way that is never required of mere college men.  We ought to be miles ahead of any fellow who has just finished at High School and then has put in four years only at college.”

Thus the happy young egotists always talked, nowadays.  To them there was really little in life that did not come through the government military academies.