oor.

"Get back into the meadow grass, Danny boy," Darrin whispered,
giving his friend's arm a hard grip. "If the 'loot'nant' comes
back, get up fearfully drowsy when he orders you. Gape and look
too stupid to apologize!"

Lieutenant Adams, however, had other matters to occupy his attention.
There was a genuine puzzle for him in the corridor. Just out,
side the door of Midshipmen Farley and Page there lay on the floor
tiny glass fragments of what had been an efficient sixty-candle-power
tungsten electric bulb. It was one of the lights that illuminated
the corridor.

Now one of these tungsten bulbs, when struck smartly, explodes
with a report like that of a pistol.

At this hour of the night, however, there were none passing save
Naval officers on duty. None other than the lieutenant himself
had lately passed in the corridor. How, then, had this electric
light bulb been shattered and made to give forth the sound of the
explosion?

"It wouldn't go up with a noise like that," murmured the lieutenant
to himself. "These tungsten lights don't explode like that, except
when rapped in some way. They don't blow up, when left alone.
At least, that is what I have always understood."

So the puzzle waxed and grew, and Lieutenant Adams found it too big
to solve alone.

"At any rate, I've questioned all the young gentlemen about the
window episode, and they all deny knowledge of it," Lieutenant
Adams told himself. "So I'll just report that fact to the O.C.,
and at the same time I'll tell him of the blowing up of this tungsten
light."

Two minutes later Lieutenant Adams stood in the presence of
Lieutenant-Commander Henderson, the officer in charge.

"So you questioned all of the midshipmen who might, by any chance,
have entered by a window?" asked the O.C.

"Yes, sir."

"And they all denied it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you see signs of any sort to lead you to believe that any of
the midshipmen might have answered in other than the strict truth?"
continued the O.C.

"No, sir," replied Lieutenant Adams, and flushed slightly, as he
went on: "Of course, sir, I believe it quite impossible for a
midshipman to tell an untruth."

"The sentiment does you credit, Lieutenant," smiled the O.C.
Then he fell to questioning the younger discipline officer as
to the names of the midshipmen whom he had questioned. Finally
the O.C. came to the two names in which the reader is most interested.

"Darrin denied having been out