“Well, I want to tell you I didn’t enjoy it,” blazed Eph. “It was a mighty
cheeky—”

“Then why did you let the officer imagine you enjoyed it?” taunted Jack.

While Hal put in, slyly:

“Eph, you’re too quick to talk about others fibbing. From the evidence
just put in, it’s evident that you’re the only one of the three who fibbed
any. Won’t you please walk on the other side of the road? I never did like
to travel with liars.”

“Oh, you go to Jericho!” flared Eph. But, as he walked along, he blinked a
good deal, and did some hard thinking.

“I’ll tell you,” broke out Jack, suddenly, “who thanks us even more than
the cadets themselves do.”

“Who?” queried Hal.

“That officer who caught the crowd at it.”

“Do you think he cared?”

“Of course he did,” said Jack, positively. “He’d rather have gone hungry
for a couple of days than have to report that bunch for hazing.”

“Then why was he so infernally stiff with the young men?”

“He had to be; that’s the answer. That officer, like every other officer