Sir, sir, surcingle! 
Sir, sir, circle! 
Sir, sir, with a shingle—­
Sir, sir, sir!

As regular as drumbeats the cadets ripped out the syllables of the refrain.  At each word Jack Benson’s body shot higher and higher.  These young men were experts in the gentle art of blanket-tossing.  Ere long the submarine boy was going up into the air some eight or nine feet at every tautening of the blanket.

As for escape, that was out of the question.  No sooner did the submarine boy touch the blanket than he shot skyward again.  Had he desired to he could not have called out.  The motion and the sudden jolts shook all the breath out of him.

“Ugh!  Hm!  Pleasant, isn’t it?” uttered Hal Hastings, grimly, under his breath.

“If they try to do that to me,” whispered Eph, hotly, under his breath, “I’ll fight.”

“More simpleton you, then!” Hal shot back at him in warning.  “What chance do you think you stand against a crowd like this?”

Just as suddenly as it had begun the blanket-tossing stopped.  Yet, hardly had Jack been allowed to step out than Hal Hastings was unceremoniously dropped athwart the blanket.  The tossing began again, to the chant of: 

  Sir, sir, surcingle! 
    Sir, sir, circle!

Right plentifully were these cadet midshipmen avenging themselves for having had to say “sir” to these young submarine boys that day.

“Woof!” breathed Jack, as soon as breath entered his body again.  Eph clenched his fists tightly, as Hal continued to go higher and higher.  But at last Hastings’s ordeal was over.

“I suppose they’ll try that on me!” gritted Eph Somers to himself.  “If they do—­”

That was far as he got, for Eph was suddenly flung upon the blanket.

  Sir, sir, surcingle!

Then how Eph did go up and down!  It was as though these cadet midshipmen knew that it would make Eph mad, madder, maddest!  These budding young naval officers fairly bent to their work, tautening and loosening on the blanket until their muscles fairly ached.

It was lofty aerial work that Eph Somers was doing.  Up and up—­higher and higher!  Without the need of any effort on his own part young Somers was now traveling upward at the rate of ten or eleven feet at every punctuated bound.

Then, suddenly, there came a sound that chilled the blood of every young cadet midshipman hazer present.

“Halt! Where you are!”

Under the shadow of the barracks building a naval officer had appeared.  He now came forward, a frown on his face, eyeing the culprits.

It is no merry jest for cadet midshipmen to be caught at hazing!  And here were some thirty of them—­red-handed!

CHAPTER XII:  JACK BENSON, EXPERT EXPLAINER

At the first word of command from the officer several of the cadet midshipmen who were near enough to an open doorway vanished through it.