“Ah,” thought the boy, “I’ll try harder than ever since it gives such pleasure to my kindest and best of fathers.  How glad I am to have the chance!  How thankful I ought to be!  I doubt if there was ever a more fortunate boy than myself.”

Max and his room-mate, Hunt, liked each other from the first, and seldom had the slightest disagreement.

According to the rules they took turns, week about, in keeping their room in order, each trying to outdo his mate in the thoroughness with which he attended to all the minutiae of the business.

They were good-natured rivals too in other matters connected with the course of instruction they were going through:  gymnastic exercises, fencing and boxing, and the drill called fire-quarters, in which the whole battalion is formed into a fire-brigade, and when the fire-bell is sounded each cadet hastens to his proper place in the troop, and the steam fire-engine and hose-carriages belonging to the Academy are brought out and used as they would be in case some building were in flames and the cadets were called upon to assist in extinguishing the blaze.

Max and his chum had become quite expert at that exercise, when one night they were roused from sleep by the sound of the fire-bell, and springing up and running to their window saw that a dwelling several squares from the Academy was in flames.

“It’s a real fire this time!” cried Hunt, snatching up a garment and beginning a very hurried toilet, Max doing the same, “and now we’ll have a chance to show how well we understand the business of putting it out.”

“And we must try to do credit to our training here in the Academy,” added Max.

An hour or more of great excitement and exertion followed, then, the fire extinguished, the brigade returned to the Academy, and the lads to their sleeping-room, so weary with their exertions that they were very soon sound asleep again.

The experiences of that night furnished Max with material for an interesting letter to his father and the rest of the home folks.

“I didn’t know the cadets were taught how to put out fires,” remarked Grace, when her father had finished reading aloud, to his wife and children, Max’s story of the doings of the cadets on that night.

“Yes,” the captain said, “that is an important part of their education.  There are a great many things a cadet needs to know.”

“I suppose so, papa,” said Lulu, “and though Maxie doesn’t say much about his own share in the work, I feel very sure he did his part.  And aren’t you proud of him—­your eldest son?”

“I am afraid I am,” replied her father, with a smile in his eyes.  “It may be all parental partiality, but my boy seems to me one of whom any father might well be proud.”

“And I am quite of your opinion, my dear,” said Violet.  “I am very proud of my husband’s son—­the dear, good, brave fellow.”

But the captain’s eyes were again upon the letter, his face expressing both interest and amusement.