ack," he panted, in the resulting tussle. "He's
always like this when he gets up in the morning."

A spirited engagement followed, from which Jack discreetly kept apart.
Presently, when the couch was a wreck and Bob had Frank over his knees
and was preparing to belabor him, Jack interfered.

"Listen to reason, you fellows," he pleaded. "I've got a proposal."

"Shall we listen to the proposal, Frank?" asked Bob, now fully awake,
and grinning broadly. "Or shall we muss him up a bit?"

"'Ark to his Royal 'Ighness," shouted Frank, his equilibrium restored.
"'Ear. 'Ear."

"Very well," said Bob, addressing Jack with mock solemnity. "My friend
says you are to be spared. But, mind you, it must be a good proposal.
Now, out with it."

Jack, ensconced in a deep easy chair, uncrossed his knees and leaned
forward.

"You remember what was said last night about the operations of the
liquor smugglers in and around New York?" he inquired.

The others nodded.

After the conversation the previous night had been directed by the
revelations of the boys regarding their mysterious neighbors, and by
Mr. Hampton's comments on the operations of liquor smugglers, the boys
had learned from the older men surprising facts regarding the
situation.

Since the adoption of prohibition, they had been told,
liquor-smuggling had grown to such an extent that a state of war
between the smugglers and the government forces practically existed.
Single vessels and even fleets were engaged by the smugglers to bring
liquor up from the West Indies and land it on the Long Island and New
Jersey coasts, and to combat these operations the government had
formed a so-called "Dry-Navy" comprising an unknown number of speedy
submarine chasers. A number of authentic incidents known to Colonel
Graham and to Mr. Hampton and Mr. Temple had been related in which the
daring of the smugglers had discomfited the government men, in one
case a cargo of liquor having been landed at a big Manhattan dock by
night and removed in trucks while a sub chaser patrolling the
waterfront passed the scene of operations several times,
unsuspecting. There were other stories, too, of how the tables were
turned, an occasion being cited when a sub chaser put a shot across
the bow of what appeared to be a Gloucester fishing schooner which
thereupon showed a clean pair of heels and tried to escape but was run
down and captured inside the three-mile limit and proved to contain a
$30,000 ca