"Benson," he begged, weakly, "will you give me your hand?"
"Certainly," nodded Jack, as he did so.
"I—I wonder if you can ever forgive me?" moaned the ill man.
"Why, have you done anything that I don't already know?" asked Jack.
"A lot! Benson, I've been an all-around scoundrel."
"That's certainly surprising news," commented the submarine boy, dryly.
"What have you been doing?"
"That assault back in Dunhaven—?"
"Was it you who knocked me out there, and sprinkled my clothes with whiskey?" demanded young Benson.
"Yes." In a somewhat shaking voice Truax confessed to the details of that outrageous affair. From that he passed on to Jack's never-to-be-forgotten trip into the suburbs of Annapolis.
"I found that mulatto in a low den," confessed the sick man. "I told him you carried a lot of money, and that he'd be welcome to it all if he'd decoy you somewhere, keep you all night, and then send you back, looking like a tramp, to the Naval Academy at the last moment."