necessary; but Clewe wanted some one who would
represent him, who could be trusted to act in his place in case of
success or of failure, who could be thoroughly depended upon should
a serious emergency arise. Such a man was Samuel Block, and, somewhat
strange to say, old Sammy was perfectly willing to go to the pole.
He was always ready for anything within bounds of his duty, and those
bounds included everything which Mr. Clewe wished done.

Sammy was an old-fashioned man, and therefore, in talking over
arrangements with Roland Clewe, he insisted upon having a sailor in the
party.

"In old times," said he, "when I was a young man, nobody ever thought of
settin' out on any kind of sea-voyagin' without havin' a sailor along.
The fact is, they used to be pretty much all sailors."

"But in this expedition," said Clewe, "a sailor would be out of place.
One of your old-fashioned mariners would not know what to do under the
water. Submarine voyaging is an entirely different profession from that
of the old-time navigator."

"I know all that," said Sammy. "I know how everything is a machine
nowadays; but I shall never forget what a glorious thing it was to sail
on the sea with the wind blowin' and the water curlin' beneath your
keel. I lived on the coast, and used to go out whenever I had a chance,
but things is mightily changed nowadays. Just think of that yacht-race
in England the other day--a race between two electric yachts, with a
couple of vessels ploughin' along to windward carryin' between 'em a
board fence thirty feet high to keep the wind off the yachts and give
'em both smooth water and equal chance. I can't get used to that sort of
thing, and I tell you, sir, that if I am goin' on a voyage to the pole,
I want to have a sailor along. If everything goes all right, we must
come to the top of the water some time, and then we ought to have at
least one man who understands surface navigation."

"All right," said Clewe; "get your sailor."

"I've got my eye on him; he's a Cape Cod man, and he's not so very old
either. When he was a boy people went about in ships with sails, and
even after he grew up Cap'n Jim was a great feller to manage a catboat;
for things has moved slower on the Cape than in many parts of the
country."

So Captain Jim Hubbell was engaged as sailor to the expedition; and when
he came on to Sardis and looked over the Dipsey he expressed a
general opinion of her construction and capabilities which