The speaker, a tall, heavily-built youth in a naval cadet uniform, grinned complacently into the upturned face of a youngster lying stretched out upon the orlop deck of the Naval Academy practice ship Monongahela.

The victim, for such his uncomfortable position and bound arms proclaimed him to be, was much younger than his chief tormentor, and was, moreover, slight and rather delicate in appearance. His white face indicated his alarm, and he looked up pleadingly at the group surrounding him. He could not speak, perforce, for a wad of spun oakum filled the cavity of his mouth, fastened there by a tarry length of rope.

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