Montague said nothing.  He could think of nothing to say.

“Gamble said something about your being interested in a fight against the Steel Trust,” said the other.  “Is that so?”

“It was so,” replied Montague.  “I’m out of it now.”

“What we were saying made me think of the Steel Trust,” said the Lieutenant.  “We get some glimpses of that concern in the Navy, you know.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Montague.

“Ask any man in the service about it,” said the Lieutenant.  “It’s an old scar that we carry around in our souls—­it won’t heal.  I mean the armour-plate frauds.”

“Sure enough!” said Montague.  He carried a long list of indictments against the steel kings in his mind; but he had forgotten this one.

“I know about it particularly,” the other continued, “because my father was on the board of investigation fifteen years ago.  I am disposed to be a little keen on the subject, because what he found out at that time practically caused his death.”

Montague darted a keen glance at the young officer, who sat gazing ahead in sombre thought.  “Fancy how a naval man feels,” he said.  “We are told that our ships are going to the Pacific, and any hour the safety of the nation may depend upon them!  And they are covered with rotten armour plate that was made by old Harrison, and sold to the Government for four or five times what it cost.  Take one case that I know about—­the Oregon.  I’ve got a brother on board her to-day.  During the Spanish War the whole country was watching her and praying for her.  And I could go on board that battleship and put my finger on the spot in her conning-tower that has a series of blow-holes straight through the middle of it—­holes that old Harrison had drilled through and plugged up with an iron bar.  If ever that plate was struck by a shell, it would splinter like so much glass.”

Montague listened, half dazed.  “Can one see that?” he cried.

“See it?  No!” said the officer.  “It’s all on the inside of the plate, of course.  When they got through with their dirty work, they would treat the surface, and who would ever know the difference?”

“But then, how can you know it?” asked Montague.

“I?” said the other.  “Because my father had laid before him the history of that plate from the hour it was made until it was put in:  the original copies of the doctored shop records, and the affidavits of the man who did the work.  He had the same thing in a hundred other cases.  I know the man who has the papers at this day.”

“You see,” continued the Lieutenant, after a pause, “the Government’s specifications required that each plate should undergo an elaborate set of treatments; and the shop records of each plate were kept.  But, of course, it cost enormous sums to get these treatments right, and even then hundreds of the plates would be bad.  So when the shop records came up to the office, young Ingham and Davidson would go over them and edit them and bring them up to standard—­that’s the way those brilliant young fellows made all the money that they are spending on chorus girls and actresses to-day.  They would have these shop records recopied, but they did not always tear up the old ones, and somebody in the office hid them, and that was how the Government got hold of the story.”