shouted back.

"By all means come aboard. Then we'll visit you. We're anxious to
see the works of such a wonderful little craft."

Within ten minutes a man-o-war's cutter was alongside, rowed by six
alert-looking young sailors, while a coxswain held the tiller ropes.

Messrs. Farnum and Pollard, Jack and Hal made up the visiting party,
leaving Eph Somers aboard the submarine, with Williamson to help him
at need.

Cordial, indeed, was the reception of the submarine folks aboard the
gunboat. There was a great amount of handshaking to be done.

In the meantime, Eph Somers was having something in the way of trouble
back on the platform deck of the "Benson."

Two small boats, manned by harbor boatmen, and each carrying a few
passengers, had put off from shore, and now ranged alongside.

"How do you do, Captain?" shouted a young man at the bow of one of the
boats.

"Louder!" begged Eph.

"How do you do, Captain?"

"Louder. I'm afraid the captain can't hear you yet," grinned the
carroty-topped submarine boy. "He's over 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