"Didn't know you knew the young gentlemen, McCrea," broke in Ulwin.
"Don't know them? When they made me the laughing-stock of every mess-room crowd in the Navy for months!" retorted McCrea.
Jack, Hal and Eph were shaking hands with the speaker with a good deal of pleasure.
It was Lieutenant McCrea, one-time watch officer on the battleship "Luzon." At one time McCrea had doubted that submarine boats were, in all respects, as wonderful craft as was claimed. The submarine boys had paid him back in most laughable fashion. Lieutenant McCrea, at one time, had felt himself much aggrieved over the wholesome teasing of his brother officers in consequence; but he had long since learned to accept the whole incident as a good and deserved joke.
Now, McCrea stood wringing the hands of the boys as though he had found long-lost friends.
"What are you doing these days?" McCrea wanted to know. "Anything besides testing new boats at Dunhaven?"
"You must greet them as comrades, McCrea," continued Lieutenant Ulwin.
"What? Cadets at Annapolis?"
In this case McCrea wondered at their being there, for cadets would be considered forward who visited an officers' club.
"Benson is a lieutenant, his friends ensigns," replied Ulwin.