Down here in the service, where different grades in rank exist, it is necessary to keep the fresh greenhorn in his place." "Oh!" muttered Dan, blinking hard.
"As to your not wanting to go into the service," Dave continued, "if you should fail, tomorrow, in your physical examination, you would be as blue as indigo, and have the blue-light signal up all the way back home." "I don't know but that is so.

Yes; I guess it is," Dalzell assented.
"Now, there are at least ninety-nine chances in a hundred that you're going to pass the Navy doctors all right, Dan," his chum went on.

"If you do, you'll be sworn into the Naval service as a midshipman.

Then you'll have to keep in mind that you're not an admiral, but only a midshipman--on probation, at that, as our instructions from the Navy Department inform us.

Now, as a new midshipman, you're only the smallest, greenest little boy in the whole service.