To make sure that Barry had overlooked nothing in his dusting, Chick and Hap went over the furniture with their fingers, searching for a smear of dust. They found none, until Hap tried the bottom of the waste basket. “Two ‘gigs’ for you, Mister Blake—if the inspecting officer had found that,” he remarked, with a wink at Chick. “You’re dead right, Hap,” Chick spoke up, wiping his finger over the same spot. “The inspecting officer will do it with white gloves, you know. And if he gets a smear—” “Aw, drive it in the hangar, fellows!” Barry protested with a grin. “Give me that waste basket and a rag. And then go wash your own hands.” “Okay—but not in the washbowl _I’ve_ just finished cleaning!” retorted Hap. “It’s too near inspection time. I’m going down the hall.... Coming, Chick?” Barry polished the bottom of the waste basket as if it were brass. As he put the cleaning rag away, he glanced about him. “If this room were to be any cleaner, it would have to be sterilized,” he declared. “Bring on your white gloves, and let’s see what they can find now. Guess I’ll have just time to join Chick and Hap down the hall and get back before inspection.” The three roommates had figured almost too close. They were just starting back to their room when call to quarters sounded. As they hurried into the hall, a uniformed figure darted across the farther end. “Say!” hissed Chick Enders. “Didn’t that mister come from _our room_?” “I thought so,” muttered Barry. “He _looked_ like Glenn Crayle! I wonder....” There was no time for more speculation then. Official footsteps were approaching. The three cadets were just able to reach their room and stiffen at attention by their beds before the inspecting party came in view. The officer in charge was Captain Branch, whose piercing black eyes had never been known to miss a spot of dirt. Square-jawed, quick-moving, he entered the room accompanied by a cadet officer with notebook and pencil. His thin, sensitive nostrils sniffed the air. “Who,” he asked sharply, “has been smoking here within the last few minutes? The room smells foul!” A tense, five-second silence followed. Barry Blake broke it. “I don’t know, sir,” he managed to say. “It was none of us three. We don’t use tobacco.” The muscles of the captain’s jaw bulged. The thin line of his lips hardened. “What is your idea in leaving rolls of dust under your bed at inspection?” he demanded bitterly. “And dirty soap on your washbowl? And that can of foot powder on the desk? And that drawer—” He broke off, to stride across the room. From the crack of a drawer in Barry’s desk drifted a tiny feather of smoke. Captain Branch jerked it open. There, on a charred paper, lay a smouldering cigar. With his face like a marble mask, the officer tossed the cigar into the washbowl. “Gentlemen,” he said heavily. “This is an idiotic defiance of authority. Unless you can clear yourselves immediately in a written report, appropriate punishment must follow. That is all.”