nt start. For these were
the words that met his astounded gaze.

_"Dear Jack: I am in a Washington police station, feeling like a
number-one idiot. Soon after leaving you I ran into Millard, face to
face, There was a policeman within two hundred feet at the moment. I
let out a full siren yell and dashed at Millard. He held on to me until
the policeman reached the spot. I let him hold me, thinking that the
easiest way. But Millard produced a paper--a request from the military
authorities at Fort. Craven, to arrest and hold anyone pointed out by
the bearer. I talked--some--to that policeman, but it did no good.
He took me to the station house, and here I am! Millard vanished,
after saying that he'd wire the news of my arrest to Fort Craven.
You'll have to explain me out of this. Yours disgustedly, Hal."_

"May I read this to you, Mr. Secretary?" begged Jack Benson.

"Do so, Lieutenant."

"I will be back in a moment," muttered the Secretary of the Navy, rising,
and hastily quitting the room.

The instant that high official was gone Eph caught at his sides with his
hands.

"Oh, wow! Woof! Umpah!" chuckled young Somers, his face distorted with
glee. "Some one catch me! I'm choking! Great Scott, what wouldn't I
have given to see that? Hal, the quiet, the dignified? Oh, dear! Oh,
dear. Hal pounces on the fellow, to arrest him, and Hal is the one who
gets pinched Woo-oo! I can see Hal's face right now I'll wager an anchor
to a fish-hook that the astonished look is stamped on Hal's face so hard
that it won't come off for a week. Oh--woof!"

Eph was laughing so hard that the tears streamed down his face.

"Quit that!" commanded Jack, stepping over to his comrade, his own face
stern. "It's no laughing matter."

"Why, they won't hang Hal!" sputtered Eph, as soon as he could talk.
"Hal will be at liberty almost at once. But fancy the shock! Imagine
the dear old fellow's astonishment, and the jolt to his feelings."

Again Eph Somers went off into a paroxysm of laughter. It seemed
uncontrollable, for Eph had a strong sense of the ludicrous, and Hal's
face, as Somers pictured it, must have been a tremendously funny sight
at the instant when Millard so neatly turned the tables.

"Come, quit your nonsense!" grumbled Jack, disgustedly.

"I can't," roared Eph, going off into still another burst of laughter.

Just at that instant Somers gave himself the lie. The door opened,
admitting the Secretary of