“How?” whispered Eph.

“Look stupid.”

“What?”

“Look stupid.”

“I don’t see much in that.”

“Why, it’s the funniest answer possible; and, besides, it isn’t fresh or forward.”

“How do you make that out?” Eph inquired.

“Why, Eph, boy, if you’re half as famous as you may think you are, then folks will know you can’t be stupid.  So, if you pretend to be, you’ll have everyone guessing what you mean by looking that way.  On the other hand, if you look stupid, and no one is surprised, then you’ll discover that that’s just the way the crowd had you sized up in advance.”

“I see,” nodded Eph, but it was plain that Jack’s almost direct command was not wholly pleasing to Somers.

The two comrades now caught up with Ulwin and Hal at the elevator.

“We’ll go up to the reading room, first,” proposed Lieutenant Ulwin.  “That’s where the afternoon crowd is usually found.”

Anyone who had been looking for “color” or pomp would have been disappointed.  The only uniforms in sight were those worn by two bell boys.  The officers of the Army and Navy present were all in citizen dress.  They looked like a lot of cheerful, prosperous business men.

“Hullo, Ulwin, what are you doing with my friends from Dunhaven?” eagerly called one young man, rising hastily and coming forward.  “Benson, I’m glad to see you.  And you, Hastings.  And you, Somers.”

“Didn’t know you knew the young gentlemen, McCrea,” broke in Ulwin.

“Don’t know them?  When they made me the laughing-stock of every mess-room crowd in the Navy for months!” retorted McCrea.

Jack, Hal and Eph were shaking hands with the speaker with a good deal of pleasure.

It was Lieutenant McCrea, one-time watch officer on the battleship “Luzon.”  At one time McCrea had doubted that submarine boats were, in all respects, as wonderful craft as was claimed.  The submarine boys had paid him back in most laughable fashion.  Lieutenant McCrea, at one time, had felt himself much aggrieved over the wholesome teasing of his brother officers in consequence; but he had long since learned to accept the whole incident as a good and deserved joke.

Now, McCrea stood wringing the hands of the boys as though he had found long-lost friends.

“What are you doing these days?” McCrea wanted to know.  “Anything besides testing new boats at Dunhaven?”

“You must greet them as comrades, McCrea,” continued Lieutenant Ulwin.

“What?  Cadets at Annapolis?”

In this case McCrea wondered at their being there, for cadets would be considered forward who visited an officers’ club.

“Benson is a lieutenant, his friends ensigns,” replied Ulwin.

“Come, come!” laughed McCrea.  “I’m easy—­these boys know that.  But don’t tell me—­”

“Fact, though,” replied Ulwin.  “They hold special appointments, for some special duty or other.  I’m here, at the direction of the Navy Department, to introduce these young brother officers of ours, and to procure ten-day cards for them.”