The very youthful lieutenant smartly returned their salutes, half smiled, then turned, in search of the officer in charge.
"Scoot! Skip! Let's escape!" whispered Dan hoarsely, and all five midshipmen were speedily out in the open.
"Now, did you fellows really see---it---or did I have a delusion that I saw you all salute when I did ?" "I saw it," rejoined Farley, "and I claim it, if no one else wants it." "The service is going to the dogs," growled Page, "when they give away a lieutenant's uniform with a pound of tea!" "What ails you fellows ?" rebuked Dave Darrin.

"The man who passed us was a sure-enough lieutenant in the Navy." "Him ?" demanded Midshipman Dalzell, startled out of his grip on English grammar.

"A lieutenant?
That---that---kid ?" "He's a lieutenant of the Navy, all right," Dave insisted.
"You're wrong," challenged Page.

"Don't you know, Dave, that a man must be at least twenty-one years old in order to hold an officer's commission in the Navy ?" "That man who received our salutes is a Naval, officer," Dave retorted.

"I don't know anything about his age." "Why, that little boy can't be a day over seventeen," gasped Dan Dalzell.