Читать книгу Ralph Osborn, Midshipman at Annapolis. A Story of Life at the U.S. Naval Academy онлайн

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Short tried to work but only made poor headway. Even had he been in a good humor he could not have passed the examination.

Ralph found the problems all easy and made rapid progress. After a while Short left his seat and approached the lieutenant in charge and asked him some trivial question. In returning, as he passed Ralph’s desk his eyes looked at the number 153, painted in white letters on the front of it, and a gleam of satisfaction passed over his face. “I’ll fix that fellow, the hound, if he leaves this room before I do,” he remarked to himself. After that Short worked fitfully, occasionally glancing up at Ralph. He noticed with much approval that Ralph apparently finished his work an hour before the time allowed had expired, and was impatient when Ralph started to read his papers over, deliberately stopping at some places to make corrections.

Half an hour before the time was up a number of the candidates had finished and were leaving the examination room. Ralph was one of these. He folded his papers neatly, placed them on one side of his desk, and left the room entirely confident he had passed the examination.