so much about that," contended Eph, warmly. "But it does jar
on me, sir, to have you take such a view of my friends. You don't know
them; you don't understand them as Mr. Farnum and Mr. Pollard do."

"Perhaps you wouldn't blame me as much for my opinions," replied Mr.
Mayhew, "if you could look at the matter from my viewpoint, Mr. Somers. I
am in charge of this cruise, which is one of instruction to naval cadets,
and I am in a very large measure responsible for the conduct and good
behavior of young men who have been selected as instructors to the cadets.
If you were in my place, Mr. Somers, would you be patient over young men
who, when they get ashore, get into one unseemly scrape after another? Or
would you wonder, as I do, whether it will not be best for me to end this
practice cruise and sail back to Annapolis, there to make my report in the
matter?"

"For heaven's sake don't do that," begged Eph Somers, hoarsely. "At least,
not until you have talked with Mr. Benson and Mr. Hastings. You'll wait
until morning, sir?"

"I'm afraid I shall have to, if I want to talk with your friends," replied
the lieutenant commander, smiling coldly. "And now, Mr. Somers, you and I
had better leave here. The doctor and his nurse will want the room cleared
in order to look after their patients. I hope your friends will be all
right in the morning," added the naval officer, as the pair gained the
deck.

"Now, see here, sir," began Eph, earnestly, all over again. "I hope you'll
soon begin to understand that, whatever has happened, there are no two
straighter boys alive than Jack Benson and Hal Hastings."

"I trust you're right," replied Mr. Mayhew, less coldly. "Yet, what can
you expect me to think, now that Benson has been in such scrapes three
different times? And, in this last instance, he drags even the quiet Mr.
Hastings into the affair with him."

"I see that I'll have to wait, sir," sighed Eph, resignedly.

"Yes; it will be better in every way to wait," agreed the lieutenant
commander. "It is plain justice, at the least, to wait and give the young
men a chance to offer any defense that they can."

"Now, of course, from his way of looking at it, I can't blame him so very
much," admitted Eph Somers, as he leaned over the rail, watching Mr.
Mayhew going back through the darkness. "But Jack--great old Jack!--having
any liking at all for mixing up in saloons and such places on shore! Ha,
ha! Ho, ho!"

Williamson, now able to