This is an American novel written in 1903 that tells the story of a young boy, Clif Faraday, on a U.S.Naval Academy Practice ship, "Monongahela". He is one of the weakest looking and youngest of a group of recruits and is teased and bullied mercilessly by some of the other recruits, who have given him the nickname of 'Nanny Gote'. He turns out, however, to be a lot less puny than he looks.