urned to his room the turkey
carcass, picked clean as though buzzards had fallen upon it, rested
forlornly upon its back in the middle of his study table. It was well
for him that the midshipman on duty in his corridor had been one of the
marauders, otherwise he would have been speedily reported for that which
followed.

When the yelling, shouting bunch rushed into Durand's room they stopped
short and a few expletives expressed their opinions of the pirates. But
Durand's wits worked quickly. Catching up the denuded bird by its greasy
neck and giving the yell of a Comanche, he rushed out into the corridor
waving his weapon over his head like a war club. The man on duty at the
table at the end of the corridor saw him coming and needed no further
hint that his Nemesis was upon him. Regardless of duty or anything else,
he bounded from his chair and fled around the corner of the corridor,
the turkey carcass speeding after him with unerring aim.

Had he remained within range he would have received all and more than
his share of the bird. Unluckily, a divisional officer had chosen that
moment to turn into the corridor, and the turkey whizzed over his head,
for he was one very tiny man. Durand did not wait to make inquiries. He
had not removed cap or overcoat, a window was close at hand, the window
of the adjoining room was accessible to one as agile as Durand, and the
next second he was out of one and through the other, leaving his friends
to make explanations.

Why it did not result in Durand and all the others losing those precious
forty-eight hours of liberty, only their special guardian spirits were
in a position to explain, but they kept discreetly silent. The men in
Durand's room could truthfully declare that they had not had a thing to
do with the launching of that extraordinary projectile and also that
Durand was not in his room. It was not necessary to be too explicit,
they felt, and twenty minutes later all were over at Middie's Haven, Guy
Bennett and Richard Allyn, to Juno's secret disgust, having shifted into
civilian clothes as was the privilege of the first classmen "on leave,"
the difference between "leave" and "liberty" being very great indeed.
Stella, although admiring the uniforms, was tantalizingly uncritical.
The girls could never quite understand Stella's lack of enthusiasm over
the midshipmen.

And so had passed that joyful evening of the Christmas hop, the biggest
surprise of all awaiting them up at