be foolish to let our tongues get us into
a worse scrape than we are in already."

Jack took Bill's advice, and when he made any remark it was in a
whisper.

They saw several of the officers who entered looking at them, and they
were evidently the subject of their conversation. Jack and Bill had
reason to consider themselves for a time persons of some importance,
though they had no wish to be so.

At last an officer in a handsome uniform entered. He was a red-haired
man, with queer twinkling eyes, and a cock-up nose, anything but of a
Roman type.

Captain Dupont spoke to him, when the lads saw him eyeing them, and
presently he came up and said, "Hurroo! now me boys, just be afther
telling me what part of the world you come from!"

Bill, as agreed on, began his narrative in a very circumstantial manner.

"All moighty foine, if thrue," observed Colonel O'Toole, for he was the
officer who had just arrived, having been sent for to act as
interpreter.

"It's true, sir, every word of it," said Bill.

"Well! we shall see, afther you repeat it all over again to the gineral,
and moind you thin don't made any changes," said the colonel.

Bill wisely did not reply. Presently the general with his staff
appeared, he and a few officers passing on into an inner room. A few
minutes afterwards Jack and Bill were sent for.

They found the general with Colonel O'Toole and several other persons
seated at a table.

The general spoke a few words, when the colonel again told the prisoners
to give an account of themselves.

Bill did so exactly in the words he had before used, Colonel O'Toole
interpreting sentence by sentence.

"Good!" said the general. "And what could induce you, when you were
once safe on shore, to venture out to sea on so dangerous a machine?"

The colonel interpreting, turned to Jack.

"I wanted to get home and see my mother, for she must fancy I am lost,"
answered Jack.

"Well, and a very right motive too," said the colonel; and he explained
to the general what Jack had said.

"And what induced you to attempt the voyage?" asked the colonel, turning
to Bill. "Did you want to get back to see your mother?"

"No, sir; I have no mother to see," answered Bill. "I wanted to get
back to do my duty, and fight the enemies of my country."

The general laughed when this was interpreted to him; and observed to
the officers around him, "If such is the spirit which animates the boys
of England, what must