Harry Blunt suddenly sat down on a chair behind him. He was momentarily speechless.
"Sit down, Mr. Blunt," smiled the commandant. Then Harry stood up.
"Wa-wa-was that all you wanted to see me for?" he stammered.
"Thank you, captain; I'll be delighted to dine with you and be with my father. This is awfully kind of you, captain. Oh, thank you; yes, indeed, I'll be there--I don't believe I've ever called on you, captain, but--"
"Well, well, Mr. Blunt," interrupted the commandant, "what is the matter with you? At first when you came into my office you seemed to be bereft of speech, and all of a sudden you talk with such a rush that you can't stop yourself. Perhaps you thought I was going to talk about something else," and Commander Dalton glanced keenly at Harry.
"Be at my house by half-past one," repeated the commandant, dismissing Harry, and the latter left. He took several deep breaths when out of the commandant's office.
"By George," he said, almost aloud, in tones of great relief, "I feared I was up against it. I was never so scared in all my life."
"Pete," said Robert a few days later, "let's go to the gun shed."
"All right," replied the amiable Peters, "come along; but what are we to do there? I don't know of any more uninteresting place in the whole Academy."
"You know that our company is going to try hard to win the flag, don't you?"
"Of course we are. And so is every other company. Don't think for a minute, Bob, that you're the only cadet lieutenant who has picked out the girl who's going to present it. But what has the gun shed to do with our company winning the flag?"
"It all counts, Pete; you know part of the grand multiple each company makes is made up of its record at target practice with six-pounder guns, don't you?"
"Well, I received a letter from Stanton last week; he says the sights of this gun are very poor. Now in our gunnery sections we were all encouraged to make improvements. You see gunnery in the navy is now a matter of terrific competition; it is ship against ship and gun against gun. At each target practice the ship that does the best carries the gunnery trophy for a year, and big money prizes are won by the best gun crews. And officers in command of different guns are encouraged to make improvements. Why, just before the Spanish war the twelve-inch guns of the 'Texas' could only shoot once in five minutes, and then the shots didn't hit often. On her last target practice those same guns fired once a minute and hit the target almost every time. And the improvements were all made by officers aboard the ship."