The Submarine Boys for the Flag | Page 7

have heard we are
wanted in the French Navy."

The Chevalier d'Ouray looked intensely astonished.
"Parbleu! You are one marvel!" gasped the Frenchman. "You read my
most secret thought. But yes! You have made ze one right guess.
However, I cannot more say upon ze street. Let us go somewhere."
"All right," nodded Eph. "You go along, now, and we'll be along in an
hour."
"Wiz pleasure," nodded the chevalier, eagerly. "But we're shall I go?"
"Anywhere you like," suggested Eph, cordially.
"But, zen, how will you know w'ere I am to be found?"
"Oh, we'll take a chance on that," proposed Eph, carelessly.
"But, unless I am able to say, now, w'ere I shall be--" the Frenchman
started to argue.
"We'll guess the meeting place as well as we did your errand,"
proposed Eph.
"Ten thousan' thanks!" cried, the chevalier. "Yet, for fear we mek ze
one mistek, suppose I say--"
Eph Somers had struck such a streak of "guying" nonsense that Jack
Benson felt called upon to interpose, for he and Hal both liked the
twinkling eyes and good-humored face of this dandified little
Frenchman.
"Pardon me, sir," Jack accordingly broke in, "but, if we happened to
guess your errand, it was because we have just gotten away from the
agent of another government."
"How? Is zat posseeble?" cried the Chevalier d'Ouray, a disappointed
look coming into his face.
"Yes; it's true," nodded Jack.

"But you did not come to any terms wiz him?"
"Oh, no!"
"Ah, zen, ze coast is steel clear," cried the little Frenchman, delightedly.
"So, as to w'ere we can meet and mek ze one talk--"
"We can get that all over with, right here," Jack replied. "We can make
you the same answer that we gave the other man. We are Americans,
and would never think of serving any other flag, even in peace time.
Chevalier, I can save your time by telling you that any arrangement to
engage our services away from the United States would be utterly
hopeless."
"But ze money--" began the Frenchman, protestingly.
"There isn't money enough across the Atlantic to hire us," Jack
answered, bluntly.
"And ze honneur--"
"Honor? What would that word afterwards mean to Americans,
Chevalier, after they had left their own country to serve another?"
The Chevalier d'Ouray began to look as though he realized he had a
harder task before him than he had expected.
"So you see, sir," Jack went on, "it will not be in the least worth your
while to try to tempt us. Come what will or may, we are under the
American flag for life. You yourself, Chevalier, wouldn't leave the
French flag to serve this country, Great Britain or Germany."
"No; but zat is deeferent, for I, monsieur, am French."
"And we are American," Jack responded.
"I will leave you, now, zen, gentlemen," replied the Frenchman, in a
tone of disappointment. "But I shall not go away before to-morrow. If
you change ze mind--or weesh to hear w'at I have to mek ze offer--"

"Thank you," nodded Jack. "But don't waste any more time on us,
Chevalier. And now--good-bye!"
The Chevalier d'Ouray shook hands with them all most gallantly. Eph
felt somewhat ashamed of his late nonsense, and, to prove it, hit the
Chevalier d'Ouray a friendly slap on one shoulder that set the
Frenchman to coughing.
"Say," muttered Jack, as the three now hurried along the street, "I begin
to wish I had a good umbrella."
"Humph! You'd look great with one," retorted Hal. "You, who have
stood on the platform deck of a submarine for hours, steering
unconcernedly, when the skies were trying to drown you."
"But I feel," remonstrated Jack, "that it's soon going to rain foreign
agents. I'd like to get in out of the international wet."
"Oh, we won't see any more of these fellows," smiled Hal.
"Now, there's just where I believe you're wrong, messmate," Jack
contended. "These foreign governments hire detectives to watch each
other. When we hear from one, we're likely to hear from the whole lot
at once. Look around you, Eph. Do you see a Jap anywhere?"
"Not a solitary jiu-jitsu fiend," responded Eph, after halting and staring
both ways in turn along the street.
"Well, Japan is about due," laughed Benson. "And now, let's get in
through the gate of the shipyard. If any more of these foreign agents
show up--well, there are two boats in the harbor that are in commission.
We'll find an excuse to put to sea in one of them."
"Just the youngsters I was going out to try to find," hailed Grant
Andrews, foreman of the submarine construction work, as he hurried
across the yard. "Mr. Farnum told me to get out and find you. He'd
have sent some one else, but I guess the