Book excerpt: How do you feel, Dick! As spruce as you did an hour ago! Candidate Greg Holmes put the question with a half-nervous laugh. He spoke in a whisper, too, as if to keep his agitation from reaching the notice of any of the score or more of other young men in the room of Mr. Ward, the aged notary at West Point. "I'll be glad when I see some daylight through the proceedings," Dick Prescott whispered in answer. "I'm glad they allow us to talk here in undertones," pursued Greg. "If we weren't allowed to do so, some of us would go suddenly crazy, utter a whoop and spring through one of the windows," grinned Dick.