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twinkled far, far below. The ledge seemed to drop away beneath his trembling legs. He stretched a hand vainly toward the spring, and gasped, “Need another couple of feet-”
    “If we only had a rope,” said Keefer. “Look man. One of us gets out with you, see, and hangs onto the window. And you hang onto him. That does it.”
    “Let’s get it over with,” said Keggs anxiously. “If he gets caught out there we all bilge.” He sprang through the window, stood beside Willie, and gripped his hand. “Now get it.” Willie let go of the window, and inched downward, clinging to Keggs’s powerful grip. He teetered at the edge of the roof, the wind whipping his clothes. The spring was in easy reach. He grasped it and thrust it into a pocket.
    Ensign Acres might have picked a less awkward moment to make his study-hour round of the tenth floor, but he chose this one. He walked past the room, peeped in, stopped short, and roared, “Attention on deck! What the hell is going on here?”
    Keggs neighed in terror and let go of Willie’s hand. Willie lunged and clutched him around the knees. The two midshipmen swayed back and forth on the ledge, not far from death. But Keggs’s urge to live was slightly stronger than his fear of ensigns. He reared backward and fell into the room on his head, hauling Willie through the window on top of him. Ensign Acres glared. His chin jutted. Willie stood up and produced the spring, stammering, “I-this was out on the roof-”
    “What the hell was it doing out there?” bellowed Acres.
    “It flew out,” said Willie.
    The blood rushed into Acres’ face as though he had been called a dirty name. “ Flew out? See here, you-”
    “While I was assembling my gun. It got away,” Willie added in hurried, plaintive tones.
    Acres looked around at the roommates. Keggs’s shuddering fear, Willie’s fright, Keefer’s rigid attention were genuine. Two months ago he had himself been a midshipman. “You should each get fifteen demerits,” he growled, by way of descending from his rage. “I have my eye on you- Carry on.” He stalked out.
    “Do you suppose,” Willie said in the numb pause that followed, “that some higher power doesn’t want me in the Navy? I seem to be the Jonah in this room.”
    “Forget it, fella. You just getting the hard luck out of your system,” Keefer said.

    They studied fiercely as Bilging Day drew nearer. A nice balance of forces became evident in Room 1013. Keggs was strong on the paper work of navigation and engineering. His plotting charts and sketches of boilers were handsome art, and he lent his talents to the others readily. He was slow to grasp facts and theories, so he set his alarm clock two hours before reveille to give himself extra study time. His face elongated daily, and his melancholy eyes burned in deepening sockets like dim candles, but he never failed a quiz.
    Keefer failed often. He calculated averages to a hair and managed to stay above the estimated expulsion level in all courses. His strong point was military wisdom. Willie never could decide whether this gift was natural or acquired, but Keefer, with the body and air of a sloven, was the most polished seaman in the school. He kept himself, his bed, and his books with the neatness of a cat. On parade his fresh-looking uniform, glittering shoes, and erect bearing quickly caught the eye of the executive officer. He was ordained a battalion commander.
    Willie Keith became the oracle of the tenth floor in matters of naval ordnance. Actually he was a blockhead on the subject. Reputations are made queerly and swiftly in wartime. It happened that in the first week a terrible examination was scheduled in Ordnance, with the announced purpose of causing weaklings to go down. Everybody crammed feverishly, of course. Willie was as earnest as the rest, but one page of the book, composed in the worst Navy jargon, baffled him; a description of a thing called a Frictionless Bearing. Keefer and Keggs had