The Submarine Boys and the Spies | Page 7

on the gunboat."
"Then who are you?"
"Who? Me?" demanded Eph, innocently. "Oh, I'm only the Secretary of
the Navy."
"All right, Mr. Secretary," laughed the same young man. "We are
coming aboard."
"Aboard of what?" inquired Eph.
"Why, you're submarine boat, of course," came the answer.
"Guess not!" responded Eph, briskly.
"Why, yes; we're newspaper men, and it's business, not fun with us."
The boat containing the speaker lay lightly alongside at this moment. In
another moment the young man in the bow would have clambered up
on deck, but Eph called down to him:

"Hold on! Stay where you are. My orders are to hit any fellow with a
boathook who tries to come up here in the captain's absence."
"But we've got to have a look at your boat, don't you see?" insisted the
newspaper man, though, as Eph carelessly picked up a boathook, the
would-be caller waited prudently in the bow of his boat.
Young Somers was surely in a state of uncertainty. He had strict orders
to allow no one aboard unless he knew them to be United States naval
officers. On the other hand, the auburn-haired boy knew how necessary
it was for the submarine folks to keep on good terms with newspaper
writers if the American people were to be favorably impressed with the
claims of the Pollard boat.
"Now, see here," said Eph, balancing the boathook, "I'm sorry to stand
here making a noise like a crank, but have you any idea at all what
orders mean on shipboard? And I'm under the strictest orders not to let
anyone aboard."
"Get your orders changed, then," proposed another newspaper man,
cheerfully.
"If you'll wait, I'll see if I can," muttered Eph, hopefully.
"Oh, we'll wait."
Williamson's head had appeared in the manhole way.
"Come out on deck, and don't let anyone on board unless we get orders
to that effect," murmured Somers, passing the conning tower. Then,
through a megaphone, the submarine boy hailed the gunboat, asking if
it would be possible for him to talk with Jack Benson. Benson soon
afterward came forward on the "Waverly." Eph explained the situation.
Jack shouted back to allow the visitors on the platform deck, but not to
let any of them into the conning tower, or below.
So Eph turned to the two boatloads of visitors, explaining:

"Perhaps you men can get that all changed if you come out to-morrow,
when the captain is here. But the best I can do to-day is to let you up
here on the platform deck."
"Oh, well," returned the first newspaper man to get up there beside the
boy, "you can tell us, as well as anyone, about your trip down the coast
and the way you slipped in here."
"And also," chimed in another, "you're the young man who came
straight up through the water when she was beneath the surface?"
Eph admitted that he was.
"That's the thing I want to know about," continued the second
newspaper man. "I've heard before about that wonderful trick of
leaving a submerged submarine, and coming to the surface. How is the
thing done?"
Eph regarded this questioner with wondering patience, before he
replied:
"You want to know so little that I'm sorry I'm deaf in my front teeth and
dumb in my right ear."
"That's on you, Paisley!" chuckled one of the newspaper men.
Then three or four began to ask questions at the same time, which
caused young Somers to wait, then remarked blandly:
"Now, if you'll all kindly talk at once, I'll give you, in a few words, a
straight account of the plain features of our trip down here, including
our run under water. But, if there's any question I don't answer for you,
you'll understand, I hope, that it's because I know it would be bad
manners for me to tell you anything that only officers of the Navy have
a right to know."
"All right, Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men,
good-humoredly. "You're all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in your

own way."
Thereupon, without telling anything that he had no right to tell, Eph
managed none the less to give his hearers an entertaining account of the
"Benson's" long trip down the coast without stop or help.
"And, unless I'm in a big error, gentlemen, ours is the longest trip that a
submarine boat ever took by itself."
"You're right there, too," nodded one of the newspaper men, who made
a study of naval affairs and records. "And the way this craft came in
this afternoon beat anything, so far as I'm aware, that was ever done
with a submarine."
"That's Captain Jack Benson's specialty," replied Eph Somers, his eyes
twinkling.
"What's his specialty!"
"Doing things with a submarine boat that have never