e, you'll
have everyone guessing what you mean by looking that way. On the other
hand, if you look stupid, and no one is surprised, then you'll
discover that that's just the way the crowd had you sized up in
advance."

"I see," nodded Eph, but it was plain that Jack's almost direct command
was not wholly pleasing to Somers.

The two comrades now caught up with Ulwin and Hal at the elevator.

"We'll go up to the reading room, first," proposed Lieutenant Ulwin.
"That's where the afternoon crowd is usually found."

Anyone who had been looking for "color" or pomp would have been
disappointed. The only uniforms in sight were those worn by two bell
boys. The officers of the Army and Navy present were all in citizen
dress. They looked like a lot of cheerful, prosperous business men.

"Hullo, Ulwin, what are you doing with my friends from Dunhaven?"
eagerly called one young man, rising hastily and coming forward. "Benson,
I'm glad to see you. And you, Hastings. And you, Somers."

"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.

"Come, come!" laughed McCrea. "I'm easy--these boys know that. But
don't tell me--"

"Fact, though," replied Ulwin. "They hold special appointments, for
some special duty or other. I'm here, at the directio