"If I am permitted to go on with the brigade, I promise, as far as any human being may promise, that I will not only be found to have passed at the end of this term, but that I will also have a higher marking after the annual examinations than after the semi-annuals." These last few words Dan spoke with his whole soul thrown into the words.

How he longed to remain in the Navy, now that he stood at the threshold of the life, uncertain whether he was about to be kicked across it into the outer world! After glancing around the table, the superintendent turned once more to the young man.
"That will be all, at present, Mr.Dalzell." Saluting briskly, crisply, Dan wheeled about, marching from the room.
He was in time to make a section recitation before dinner.
"How did you come out, Danny boy ?" anxiously inquired Dave Darrin as the two, in their room, hastily prepared to answer the coming call for dinner formation.
"I wish I knew," replied Dalzell wistfully.

"I said all that I could say without being everlastingly fresh." After the brigade had been formed for dinner, and the brigade adjutant had reported the fact, the command was given: "Publish the orders!" This the brigade adjutant did rapidly, and in perfunctory tones.
Dalzell jumped, however, when he heard his own name pronounced.

He strained his ears as the brigade adjutant read: "In the matter of Daniel Dalzell, summoned before the Academic Board to determine his fitness and aptitude for continuing in the brigade, the Board has granted Midshipman Dalzell's urgent request that he be continued as a midshipman for the present." There was a great lump, instantly, in Dan's throat.

It was a reprieve, a chance for official life--but that was all.
"I'll make good--I'll make good!" he told himself, with a violent gulp.
The orders were ringing out sharply now.