the Secretary of the Navy, who
on behalf of the people, bought our boats."

"Yes--"

"He acted as the agent of the people," Eph continued.

"Well--"

"Therefore," asserted Eph Somers, with a roguish twinkle in his eyes,
"the Secretary of the Navy is the proper official for you to go to in
search of that information. And you may tell the Secretary--"

"Stop making fun of us," interposed a newspaper man.

"You may tell the Secretary," finished Eph, "that I said I had no
objection to his giving you the information you want."

The newspaper men after gazing briefly at the innocent-looking face of
the carroty-topped one, began to grin.

"Young Somers is all right," declared one of the visitors. "He knows
when to talk, and also when to hold his tongue."

"I never was sized up so straight before," grinned Eph, "since I was
caught stealing grapes behind the Methodist church."

Before the newspaper men departed in their boats they had obtained some
amusing and interesting points for a news "story." Yet not one of them
had gained any inside information as to the closely guarded secrets of
the submarine. Eph, from his very disposition and temperament, made
undoubtedly the best press agent the Pollard Company could have had.
Hal Hastings, while wishing to be obliging, probably would have said
his whole "say" in twenty or thirty words. Jack Benson would have sung
the praises of the Pollard boats readily enough. But it was Eph, alone
of the three, who could give to such an interview the humor and wit that
American newspaper readers enjoy.

One "reporter" in the party that was rowed back to the beach was not
known to his associates. Wherever several newspaper men are gathered
at a point on business it is generally easy for a stranger, not connected
with the press, to push himself into the group. The stranger, in this
instance, had given the name of Norton, claiming to be from an Omaha
paper.

Arrived at the beach, however, "Norton" did not hasten to the telegraph
office. Instead, he hurried to the Hotel Clayton, the largest and most
expensive of the hotels at Spruce Beach.

Entering one of the elevators, Norton stepped off at the third floor.
He stepped briskly down a corridor, stopping before a door and giving
an unusual style of knock.

"Come--in," sounded a drawling voice, and Norton entered.

From a seat by a table, in the center of the large room, rose a man
somewhat past middle age This man was tall,