“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.”
[pg 193] “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.”