Mr.Trotter was telling me, yesterday, that the plebe year is the hardest year of all here." "Mr.Trotter is a highly intelligent individual, then," murmured Dan Dalzell.
"He explained that the first year is the hardest just because the new man has never before learned how to study.

After our first year here, he says, we'll have the gait so that we can go easily at the work given us." "If we ever live through the first year," murmured Dan disconsolately.
"As for me, I'm hovering at the 'unsat.' line all the time, and constantly fearing that I'm going to be unseated.

If I could see myself actually getting through the first year here, with just enough of an average to save me, I'd be just as happy as ever a fourth class man can hope to be here." "Remember the old Gridley spirit, Danny boy," coaxed Dave.

"We can't be licked--just because we don't know how to take a licking.
We're going to get through here, Danny, and we're going to become officers in the Navy.

It's tough on the way--that's all." "And we green young idiots," sighed Dalzell, "thought the life here was just a life of parading, with yachting thrown in on the side.