Pollard, the inventor of the Pollard Submarine boat.

"No, sir," Captain Jack replied.

"We have thought," resumed Mr. Farnum, quietly, after blowing out a ring
of smoke, "of calling the third boat, now building, the 'Benson.'"

"The--the--what, sir?" stammered Jack, flushing and rising.

"Now, don't get excited, lad," laughed the shipbuilder.

"But--but--naming a boat for the United States Navy after me, sir--"

Captain Jack's face flushed crimson.

"Of course, if you object--" smiled Mr. Farnum, then paused.

"Object? You know I don't, sir. But I am afraid the idea is going to my
head," laughed Jack, his face still flushed. "The very idea of there being
in the United States Navy a fine and capable craft named after me--"

"Oh, if the Navy folks object," laughed Farnum, "then they'll change the
name quickly enough. You understand, lad, the names we give to our boats
last only until the craft are sold. The Navy people can change those names
if they please."

"It will be a handsome compliment to me, Mr. Farnum. More handsome than
deserved, I fear."

"Deserved, well enough," retorted the shipbuilder. "Dave Pollard and I are
well enough satisfied that, if it hadn't been for you youngsters, and the
superb way in which you handled our first boat, Dave and I would still be
sitting on the anxious bench in the ante-rooms of the Navy Department at
Washington."

"Well, I don't deserve to have a boat named after me any more than Hal
does, or Eph Somers."

"Give us time, won't you, Captain?" pleaded Jacob Farnum, his face
straight, but his eyes laughing. "We expect to build at least five boats.
If we didn't, this yard never would have been fitted for the present work,
and you three boys, who've done so handsomely by us, wouldn't each own, as
you now do, ten shares of stock in this company. Never fear; there'll be a
'Hastings' and a 'Somers' added to our fleet one of these days--even though
some of our boats have to be sold to foreign governments."

"If a boat named the 'Hastings' were sold to some foreign government,"
laughed Jack Benson, "Hal, here, wouldn't say much about it. But call a
boat named the 'Somers,' after Eph, and then sell it, say, to the Germans
or the Japanese, and all of Eph's American gorge would come to the
surface. I'll wager he'd scheme to sink any submarine torpedo boat, named
after him, that was sold to go under a foreign flag."

"I hope we'll never have to sell any of our boats to foreign go