DAVE'S WORK GOES STALE
"Aye, you're not---not joking?" demanded Dan Dalzell half piteously.
"Do you see any signs of mirth in my face?" demanded Dave Darrin
indignantly.
Rap-tap! Right after the summons Midshipman Farley and Page entered
the room.
"Say, who's dead?" blurted out Farley, struck by the looks of
consternation on the faces of their hosts.
"Tell him, Dave," urged Dan.
"Prescott and Holmes won't play on this year's Army team," stated
Darrin.
"Whoop!" yelled Farley gleefully. "And that was what you're looking
so mighty solemn about? Cheer up, boy! It's good news."
"Great!" seconded Midshipman Page with enthusiasm.
"I tell you, fellows," spoke Dave solemnly, "it takes all the joy
out of the Army-Navy game."
"Since when did winning kill joy?" demanded Farley aghast. "Why,
with Prescott and Holmes out of it the Navy will get a fit of
crowing that will last until after Christmas!"
"It makes the victory too cheap," contended Darrin.
"A victory is a victory," quoth Midshipman Page, "and the only
fellow who can feel cheap about it is the fellow who doesn't win.
Cheer up, Davy. It's all well enough to wallop a stray college,
here and there, but the one victory that sinks in deep and does
our hearts good is the one we carry away from the Army. Whoop!
I could cry for joy."
"But why won't Prescott and Holmes play this year?" asked Farley,
his face radiant with the satisfaction that the news had given him.
"Because the corps has sent Prescott to Coventry for something that
I'm certain the dear old fellow never did," Darrin replied.
"Lucky accident!" muttered Farley.
"But the corps will repent, when they find their football hope
gone," predicted Page, his face losing much of its hitherto joyous
expression.
"No! No such luck," rejoined Midshipman Darrin. "If the brigade,
here, sent a fellow to Coventry for what they considered cause,
do you mean to tell me that they'd take the fellow out of Coventry
just to get a good player on the eleven?"
"No, of course, not," Page admitted.
"Then do you imagine that the West Point men are any more lax in
their views of corps honor?" pressed Dave.
"To be sure they are not---they can't be."
"Then there's only a chance in a thousand that Dick Prescott will,
by any lucky accident, be restored to favor in the corps---at
least, in time to play on this year's eleven. If he doesn't play,
Holmes simply won't play. So that takes all the interest out of
this year's Army-navy game."
"Not if the Navy wins," contended Midshipman Page.
"Bosh, there's neither profit nor honor in the Navy winning, unless
it's against the best men that the Army can put forth," retorted
Dave Darrin stubbornly. "By the great Dewey, I'm afraid nine
tenths of my enthusiasm for the game this year has been killed by
the miserable news that has come in."
Within less than five minutes after the midshipmen had seated
themselves around the scores of tables in the mess hall, the news
had flown around that Prescott and Holmes were to be counted as
out of the Army eleven for this year.
Here and there suppressed cheers greeted the announcement The
bulk of the midshipmen, however, were much of Dave Darrin's opinion
that there was little glory in beating less than the best team
that the Army could really put forth.
"Darry looks as though he had just got back from a funeral," remarked
one member of the third class to another youngster.
"I don't blame him," replied the one so addressed.
"But he's all the more sure of winning over the Army this year."
"I don't believe either of you youngsters know Darrin as well
as I do," broke in a second classman. "What I'm afraid of is,
if Prescott and Holmes don't play with the soldiers, then Darry
will lose interest in the game to such a degree that even Army
dubs will be able to take his shoestrings away from him. Danny
doesn't enjoy fighting fourth-raters. It's the big game that
he enjoys going after. Why, I'm told that he had simply set his
heart on pushing Prescott and Holmes all the way across Franklin
Field this year."
Readers who are anxious to know why Dick Prescott, one of the
finest of American youths, had been sent to Coventry by his comrades
at the United States Military Academy, will find it all set forth
in the concluding volume of the West Point Series, entitled _"Dick
Prescott's Fourth Year At West Point."_
Strangely enough, the first effect of this news from West Point
was to send the Navy eleven somewhat "to the bad." That is to
say, Dave Darrin, despite his best endeavors, seemed to go stale
from the first hour when he knew that he was not to meet Dick
Prescott on the gridiron.
"Mr. Darrin, what ails you?" demanded coach kindly, at the end
of the second practice game after that.
"I don't know, sir."
"You must brace up."
"Yes, sir."
"You seem to have lost all ambition. No; I won't just say that.
But you appear, Mr. Darrin, either to have lost some of your snap
or ambition, or else you have gone unaccountably stale."
"I realize my defects, sir, and I am trying very, very hard to
overcome them."
"Are you ill at ease over any of your studies?" persisted coach.
"No, sir; it seems to me that the fourth year studies are the
easiest in the whole course."
"They are not, Mr. Darrin. But you have had the advantage of three
hard years spent in learning how to study, and so your present
course appears rather easy to you. Are you sleeping well?"
"Yes, sir."
"Eating well?"
"Splendid appetite, sir."
"Hm! I shall soon have a chance to satisfy myself on that point,
Mr. Darrin. The day after to-morrow the team goes to training
table. Have you any idea, Mr. Darrin, what is causing you to
make a poorer showing?"
"I have had one very great disappointment, sir. But I'd hate to
think that a thing like that could send me stale."
"Oh, a disappointment?"
"Yes, sir," Dave went on frankly. "You see, sir, I have been
looking forward, most eagerly, to meeting Prescott and downing
him with the tricks that Jetson, Dalzell and I have been getting
up."
"Oh! Prescott of the Army team?"
"Yes, sir."
"I think I heard something about his having been sent to Coventry at
the Military Academy."
"But, Mr. Darrin, you are not going to fail us just because the
Army loses a worthy player or two?" exclaimed Lieutenant-Commander
Parker in astonishment.
"Probably that isn't what ails me, sir," Dave answered flushing.
"After all, sir, probably I'm just beginning to go stale. If
I can't shake it off no doubt I had better be retired from the
Navy eleven."
"Don't you believe it!" almost shouted coach. "Mr. Darrin, you
will simply have to brace! Give us all the best that's in you,
and don't for one instant allow any personal disappointments to
unfit you. You'll do that, won't you?"
"Yes, sir."
Darrin certainly tried hard enough. Yet just as certainly the
Navy's boosters shook their heads when they watched Darrin's work
on the field.
"He has gone stale," they said. "The very worst thing that could
happen to the Navy this year!"
Then came the first game of the season---with Lehigh. Darrin
roused himself all he could, and his playing was very nearly up
to what might have been expected of him---though not quite.
The visitors got away with a score of eight to five against the Navy.
Next week the Lehighs went to West Point and suffered defeat at
the hands of the Army.
The news sent gloom broadcast through the Naval Academy.
"We get beaten by one of the smaller colleges, that West Point can
trim," was the mournful comment.
It did, indeed, look bad for the Navy!