nearly eleven o'clock
`` Never , I hope , '' replied their conductor frigidly , `` unless you can learn to speak of the uniform of the service with more respect . '' Dan fell back abashed . His style of humor , he was fast discovering , did not seem to make a hit at Annapolis . Back in the same waiting room the two young men lingered until nearly eleven o'clock . More than two score of candidates had passed the medical examiners by this time , and some others had failed to pass . Yet many of these successful candidates had yet to take their scholastic examinations over in Academic Hall , and so did not wait with Dave and Dan , who had now passed in everything . By eleven there were fully a dozen young men who , like Dave and Dan , were ready to be sworn in .