"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 ether 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 them selves 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 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."