of the Navy detailed here, is sworn to do his full duty. So he has to
enforce the regulations. But don’t you suppose, fellows, that officer was
hazed, and did some hazing on his own account, when he was a cadet
midshipman here years ago? Of course! And that’s why the officer didn’t
question us any more closely than he did. He was afraid he might stumble
on something that would oblige him to report the whole crowd for hazing.
_He_ didn’t want to do it. That officer, I’m certain, knew that, if he
questioned us too closely, he’d find a lot more beneath the surface that
he simply didn’t want to dig up.”

“Would you have told the truth, if he had questioned you searchingly, and
pinned you right down?” demanded Eph Somers.

“Of course I would,” Jack replied, soberly. “I’m no liar. But I feel
deeply grateful to that officer for not being keener.”

Before nine o’clock the next morning news of the night’s doings back of
barracks had spread through the entire corps of cadet midshipmen.

With these young men of the Navy there was but one opinion of the
submarine boys—that they were trumps, wholly of the right sort.

As a result, Jack, Hal and Eph had hundreds of new friends among those who
will officer the Navy of the morrow.

Not so bad, even just as a stroke of business!