“How should I know?” demanded Eph, solemnly.

“You see your friends, and you see their condition.”

“Smell their breaths, sir.  There isn’t a trace of the odor of liquor.”

The surgeon did so, confirming Eph’s claim.

“But I remember that Mr. Benson came aboard, at Dunhaven, with a very strong odor of liquor,” continued the lieutenant commander.

“That had been sprinkled on his clothes, sir,” argued Somers.

“Perhaps.  But then there was the Annapolis affair.”

“Mr. Benson explained that to you, sir.”

“It’s very strange,” returned the lieutenant commander, “that such things seem to happen generally to Mr. Benson when he gets on shore.  I know I have been ashore, in all parts of the world, without having such things happen to me.”

“There is something behind this, sir, that doesn’t spell bad conduct on the part of either of my friends,” cried Eph, hotly.  “There’s some plot, some trick in the whole thing that we don’t understand.  And we might understand much more about it, sir, if your midshipman had arrested that pair of blackguards on the sloop, and brought them back with us.”

“Had Mr. Benson and Mr. Hastings been members of the naval forces we could have done that,” replied Mr. Mayhew.  “Probably you don’t understand, Mr. Somers, how very careful the Navy has to be about making arrests in times of peace, when the civil authorities are all-supreme.  We carried our right as far as it could possibly be stretched when we boarded and searched that sloop for you.”

“I don’t care 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.