“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 leave his motors, came on deck, asking an account of what had happened.  The machinist listened in amazement, though, like Eph, he needed no proof that the boys, whatever trouble they had encountered, had met honestly and innocently.

“Of course that naval officer is right, too, from his own limited point of view,” urged Williamson.

“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” nodded Somers, gloomily.  “I’ve been trying to tell myself that.  But it would be fearful, wouldn’t it, if the ‘Farnum’ were ordered away from the fleet, and Jack disgraced, just because of things he really didn’t do.”

“It’s a queer old world,” mused the machinist, thoughtfully.  “We hear a lot about the consequences of wrong things we do.  But how often people seem to have to pay up for things they never did!”

“Oh, well,” muttered Eph, philosophically, “let’s wait until morning.  A night’s sleep straightens out a lot of things.”

Williamson, however, having had some sleep earlier in the night, was not drowsy, now.  He lighted a pipe, lingering on the platform deck.  Eph, not being a user of tobacco, went below to find that Doctor McCrea, from the gunboat, was sitting in the cabin, reading a book he had chosen from the book-case.

“I’ve brought the young men around somewhat,” reported the physician.  “I’ve made them throw off the drug, and now I’ve left some stuff with the nurse to help brace them up.  They’ll have sour stomachs and aching heads in the morning, though.”

“But you noticed one thing, Doctor?” pressed Somers.

“What was that?”

“That there were no signs of liquor about them?  Those boys never tasted a drop of the vile stuff in their lives!”

“I’m inclined to believe you,” nodded the surgeon.  “They have splendid, clear skins, eyes bright as diamonds, sound, sturdy heart-beats, and they’re full of vitality.  I’ve met boys from the slums, once in a while—­beer-drinkers and cigarette-smokers.  But such boys never show the splendid physical condition that your friends possess.”