The latter looked as stolid, and stood as rigidly at attention, as ever.
"Under this presentation of the matter," said the officer, after a long pause, "I am not prepared to say that there has been any violation of discipline. At least, no grave infraction. However, some of these young gentlemen are, I believe, absent from their quarters without leave. Mr.
Merriam?"
"I have permission to be absent from my quarters between nine and ten, sir."
"Mr. Caldwell?"
"Absent from quarters without permission, sir."
So on down through the list the officer ran. Nine of the young men proved to have leave to be away from their quarters. The other seven did not have such permission. The names of these seven, therefore, were written down to be reported. The seven, too, were ordered at once back to their quarters.
Having issued his instructions, the naval officer turned and walked away.
Jack and his comrades, too, left the scene.
Yet they had not gone far when they heard a low hail behind. Turning, they saw Cadet Midshipmen Merriam hastening toward them.
"Gentlemen," he said, earnestly, as he reached them, "it may not be best for me to be seen lingering here to talk with you. But my comrades wanted me to come after you and to say that we think you bricks. You carried that off finely, Mr. Benson. None of us will ever forget it."
"It wasn"t much to do," smiled Jack, pleasantly.
"It was quick-witted of you, and generous too, sir," rejoined Mr. Merriam, finding it now very easy to employ the "sir." "Probably you agree with us that no great crime was committed, anyway. But, just the same, hazing is under a heavy ban these days. If you hadn"t saved the day as you did, sir, all of our cadet party might have been dismissed the Service. Those absent from quarters without leave will get only a few demerits apiece. We have that much to thank you for, sir, and we do. All our thanks, remember. Good night, sir."
"My courage was down in my boots for a while," confessed Hal Hastings, as the three chums continued their walk back to the Basin.
"When?" demanded Eph, grimly. "When your boots-and the rest of you-were so high up in the air over the blanket?"
"No; when the cadets were caught at it," replied Hal.
"Say, Jack," demanded Eph, "do you ever give much thought to the future life?"
"Meaning the life in the next world?" questioned Benson.
"Yes."
"I sometimes give a good deal of thought to it," Jack confessed.
"Then where do you expect to go, when the time comes?"
"Why?"
"After the whoppers you told that officer?"
"I didn"t tell him even a single tiny fib," protested Jack, indignantly.
"Oh, you George Washington!" choked Eph Somers.
"Well, I didn"t," insisted Jack. "Now, just stop and think. Weren"t we all three discussing hazing?"
"Yes."
"Then that part of what I told the officer was straight. Now, Eph, when we saw that first cadet come along, didn"t I suggest to you to ask him about hazing?"
"Ye-es," admitted Somers, thoughtfully.
"Then, didn"t the cadet midshipmen offer to show us all about hazing pranks, and didn"t they do it?"
"Well, rather," muttered Eph.
"Now, young man, that"s all I told the officer, except that we enjoyed our entertainment greatly."
"_Did_ we enjoy it, though?" demanded Eph Somers, bridling up.
"I did," replied Jack, "and I spoke for myself. I enjoyed it as I would enjoy almost any new experience."
"So did I," added Hal, warmly. "It was rough-mighty rough-but now I know what an Annapolis hazing is like, and I"m glad I do."
"Well, I want to tell you I didn"t enjoy it," blazed Eph. "It was a mighty cheeky-"
"Then why did you let the officer imagine you enjoyed it?" taunted Jack.
While Hal put in, slyly:
"Eph, you"re too quick to talk about others fibbing. From the evidence just put in, it"s evident that you"re the only one of the three who fibbed any. Won"t you please walk on the other side of the road? I never did like to travel with liars."
"Oh, you go to Jericho!" flared Eph. But, as he walked along, he blinked a good deal, and did some hard thinking.
"I"ll tell you," broke out Jack, suddenly, "who thanks us even more than the cadets themselves do."
"Who?" queried Hal.
"That officer who caught the crowd at it."
"Do you think he cared?"
"Of course he did," said Jack, positively. "He"d rather have gone hungry for a couple of days than have to report that bunch for hazing."
"Then why was he so infernally stiff with the young men?"
"He had to be; that"s the answer. That officer, like every other officer of the Navy detailed here, is sworn to do his full duty. So he has to enforce the regulations. But don"t you suppose, fellows, that officer was hazed, and did some hazing on his own account, when he was a cadet midshipman here years ago? Of course! And that"s why the officer didn"t question us any more closely than he did. He was afraid he might stumble on something that would oblige him to report the whole crowd for hazing.
_He_ didn"t want to do it. That officer, I"m certain, knew that, if he questioned us too closely, he"d find a lot more beneath the surface that he simply didn"t want to dig up."
"Would you have told the truth, if he had questioned you searchingly, and pinned you right down?" demanded Eph Somers.
"Of course I would," Jack replied, soberly. "I"m no liar. But I feel deeply grateful to that officer for not being keener."
Before nine o"clock the next morning news of the night"s doings back of barracks had spread through the entire corps of cadet midshipmen.
With these young men of the Navy there was but one opinion of the submarine boys-that they were trumps, wholly of the right sort.