off in his tune again to
ask.

"Going to wait for us down on High Street--and Seven Knott, too."

"Did Hansie say he'd go?" cried the other sailor boy. "Bet he's sore as
he can be because he's not with the _Colodia_ and Lieutenant Lang."

"He'd never 've taken this furlough, he says, if his mother hadn't
begged so hard. Did you ever see a garby so stuck on a gold stripe as
Seven Knott is on Lieutenant Commander Lang?" said Torry, rather
scornfully.

"I don't know. Mr. Lang has been a good friend to Hans Hertig. This is
his second hitch under Mr. Lang," Whistler said.

"Wonder if we'll enlist a second time, too, Whistler."

"Bet you!" was the succinct reply.

The car started under Torry's careful guidance, and they quickly whisked
around the corner into the main street of Seacove, the small port in
which the chums had been born and had lived all their lives until they
had enlisted as seamen apprentices in the Navy not many months before.

They passed the little cottage in which Mrs. Hertig, Seven Knott's
mother, lived. Beyond that was the Donahue home, where Frenchy's widowed
mother lived with his younger brothers and sisters.

Then came the Rosenmeyer delicatessen shop, and there the car was pulled
down by Torry, for there was a little group outside the shop, the center
of which were three figures in blue.

"Look at those happy Jacks, will you?" ejaculated Torry in feigned
disgust. "Got an audience, haven't they? And even Seven Knott must be
talking some, too. What do you know about that?"

For the attitude of Seacove had changed mightily since these boys had
joined the Navy early in 1917. War had been declared between the United
States and Germany and her allies, the drafted men were being called to
the training camps, and some had already gone "over there" and were
fighting in the trenches of northern France.

Philip Morgan, Alfred Torrance, Michael Donahue, Ikey Rosenmeyer, and
their mates on the destroyer _Colodia_ had already aided in convoying a
large number of troop ships across the Atlantic, had chased submarines
and destroyed at least one of the enemy U-boats, and had hunted for and
captured the German raider, _Graf von Posen_, which had among the other
loot in her hold the treasure of the Borgias which had been purchased
from an Italian nobleman by the four Navy boys' very good friend, Mr.
Alonzo Minnette.

The four friends, Morgan, Torrance, Donahue, and Ikey Rosenmeyer, the
son of the proprie