CHAPTER XVI.
HOW DAN FACED THE BOARD "We trust, Mr.Dalzell, that you can make some statement or explanation that will show that we shall be justified in retaining you as a midshipman in the Naval Academy." It was the superintendent of the United States Naval Academy who was speaking.
Dan's hour of great ordeal had come upon him.

That young midshipman found himself in the Board Room, facing the entire Academic Board, trying to remember what Freeman had told him the night before.
The time was 10.30 a.m.on that fateful Monday.
Midshipman Dalzell appeared to be collected, but he was also very certainly white-faced.
Many a young man, doomed to be sent forth from a Naval career, back into the busy, unheeding world, had faced this Board in times past.

So it was hardly to be expected that Dan would inspire any unusual interest in the members of the Board.
Dan swallowed at something hard in his throat, then opened his lips to speak.
"I am aware, sir, and gentlemen, that I am at present sufficiently deficient in my studies to warrant my being dropped," Dan began rather slowly.

"Yet I would call attention to the fact that I was nearly as badly off, in the matter of markings, at this time last year.

It is also a matter of record that I pulled myself together, later on, and contrived to get through the first year with a considerable margin of credits to spare.