"Belle, I consider that any fellow who gets by the examiners has passed with honors.

So we're all honor men that are now left in the class.

Several of the poor fellows had to write home last June asking their parents for the price of a ticket homeward." "But, now that you've got half way through, you're pretty sure to go the rest of the way safely," Belle insisted.
"That's almost too much of a brag to make, Belle.

The truth is, no fellow is safe until he has been commissioned as an ensign, and that's at least two years after he has graduated from the Naval Academy.

Why even after examination, you know, a fellow has to go to sea for two years, as a midshipman, and then take another and final examination at sea.