CHAPTER XVI.
THE DAY OF MANY DOUBTS Busy days followed, days which, for some of the first classmen, were filled with a curious discontent.
Some, to be sure, among these midshipmen soon to graduate, took each day as it came, with little or no emotion.

To them the Naval life ahead was coming only as a matter of course.

There were others, however---and Dave Darrin was among them---who looked upon a commission as an officer of the Navy as a sacred trust given them by the nation.
Dave Darrin was one of those who, while standing above the middle of his class, yet felt that he had not made sufficiently good use of his time.

To his way of thinking there was an appalling lot in the way of Naval duties that he did not understand.
"I may get through here, and out of here, and in another couple of years be a line or engineer officer," Midshipman Darrin confided to his chum and roommate one day.

"But I shall be only a half-baked sort of officer." "Well, are cubs ever anything more ?" demanded Dan.
"Yes; Wolgast, for instance, is going to be something more.