on.

"Humph!" uttered Mr. Mayhew. "That sort of trick isn't played on folks in
any decent resort on shore. I don't understand Mr. Benson's conduct. I
remember his mishap at Dunhaven. I remember the plight he got into at
Annapolis; and now he and Mr. Hastings are found in this questionable
shape. I am very much afraid these young men do not conduct themselves, on
shore, in the careful manner that must be expected of civilian instructors
to cadets."

Eph Somers felt something boiling up inside of him.

CHAPTER XIX: THE LIEUTENANT COMMANDER'S VERDICT

"Let me try to get at your meaning, sir, if you please," begged Somers,
after standing for a few seconds with clenched fists. "Do you mean that my
friends have been going into tough resorts on shore?"

"Where else do sailors usually get drugged?" inquired Mr. Mayhew. "What
kind of people usually feed sea-faring men with what are generally known
as knock-out drops?"

"How should I know?" demanded Eph, solemnly.

"You see your friends, and you see their condition."

"Smell their breaths, sir. There isn't a trace of the odor of liquor."

The surgeon did so, confirming Eph's claim.

"But I remember that Mr. Benson came aboard, at Dunhaven, with a very
strong odor of liquor," continued the lieutenant commander.

"That had been sprinkled on his clothes, sir," argued Somers.

"Perhaps. But then there was the Annapolis affair."

"Mr. Benson explained that to you, sir."

"It's very strange," returned the lieutenant commander, "that such things
seem to happen generally to Mr. Benson when he gets on shore. I know I
have been ashore, in all parts of the world, without having such things
happen to me."

"There is something behind this, sir, that doesn't spell bad conduct on
the part of either of my friends," cried Eph, hotly. "There's some plot,
some trick in the whole thing that we don't understand. And we might
understand much more about it, sir, if your midshipman had arrested that
pair of blackguards on the sloop, and brought them back with us."

"Had Mr. Benson and Mr. Hastings been members of the naval forces we could
have done that," replied Mr. Mayhew. "Probably you don't understand, Mr.
Somers, how very careful the Navy has to be about making arrests in times
of peace, when the civil authorities are all-supreme. We carried our right
as far as it could possibly be stretched when we boarded and searched that
sloop for you."

"I don't care