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 have you any idea at all what orders mean on shipboard? And I'm under the strictest orders not to let anyone aboard."

"Get your orders changed, then," proposed another newspaper man, cheerfully.

"If you'll wait, I'll see if I can," muttered Eph, hopefully.

"Oh, we'll wait."

Williamson's head had appeared in the manhole way.

"Come out on deck, and don't let anyone on board unless we get orders to that effect," murmured Somers, passing the conning tower. Then, through a megaphone, the submarine boy hailed the gunboat, asking if it would be possible for him to talk with Jack Benson. Benson soon afterward came forward on the "Waverly." Eph explained the situation. Jack shouted back to allow the visitors on the platform deck, but not to let any of them into the conning tower, or below.

So Eph turned to the two boatloads of visitors, explaining:

"Perhaps you men can get that all changed if you come out to-morrow, when the captain is here. But the best I can do to-day is to let you up here on the platform deck."

"Oh, well," returned the first newspaper man to get up there beside the boy, "you can tell us, as well as anyone, about your trip down the coast and the way you slipped in here."

"And also," chimed in another, "you're the young man who came straight up through the water when she was beneath the surface?"

Eph admitted that he was.

"That's the thing I want to know about," continued the second newspaper man. "I've heard before about that wonderful trick of leaving a submerged submarine, and coming to the surface. How is the thing done?"

Eph regarded this questioner with wondering patience, before he replied:

"You want to know so little that I'm sorry I'm deaf in my front teeth and dumb in my right ear."

"That's on you, Paisley!" chuckled one of the newspaper men.

Then three or four began to ask questions at the same time, which caused young Somers to wait, then remarked blandly:

"Now, if you'll all kindly talk at once, I'll give you, in a few words, a straight account of the plain features of our trip down here, including our run under water. But, if there's any question I don't answer for you, you'll understand, I hope, that it's because I know it would be bad manners for me to tell you anything that only officers of the Navy have a right to know."

"All right, Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men, good-humoredly.
"You're all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in your own way."

Thereupon, without telling anything that he had no right to tell, Eph managed none the less to give his hearers an entertaining account of the "Benson's" long trip down the coast without stop or help.

"And, unless I'm in a big error, gentlemen, ours is the longest trip that a submarine boat ever took by itself."

"You're right there, too," nodded one of the newspaper men, who made a study of naval affairs and records. "And the way this craft came in this afternoon beat anything, so far as I'm aware, that was ever done with a submarine."

"That's Captain Jack Benson's specialty," replied Eph Somers, his eyes twinkling.

"What's his specialty!"

"Doing things with a submarine boat that have never been done before.
Captain Benson is the latest wonder in the submarine line."

"He has a very steady admirer in you, hasn't he?" inquired one of the newspaper men, laughingly..

"Yes; and the same is true of anyone else who knows him well," declared Eph, warmly. "Jack Benson is about the best fellow on earth—and one of the smartest, too, his comrades think."

Thereupon one of the newspaper correspondents began tactfully to draw out young Somers about the history and past performances of the young submarine captain. On this subject Somers talked as freely as they could want.

"It was Benson, too, who discovered the trick of leaving a submarine boat on the bottom, and coming to the top by himself, wasn't it?" slyly asked one of the visitors.

"That was his discovery," nodded Eph, promptly.

"What's the principle of the trick?"

Eph's jaws snapped with a slight noise. He remained silent, for a few moments, before he replied:

"So far, that trick is known only to the Pollard people and a few officers of the Navy. The fewer that know, the better the chance of keeping it a secret. Don't you believe me?"

"That's one way of looking at it, perhaps," nodded a reporter. "But there's another side to that, too, Somers. The United States now own some of your boats, and the money of the people paid for those boats. Now, don't you think the people of this country have a right to know some of the secrets for which they pay good money, and a lot of it?"

On hearing the question put that way Eph looked tremendously thoughtful for a few seconds.

"Why, yes, undoubtedly," admitted the carroty-topped submarine boy.
"I never thought of it that way before."

"Then—"

"See here," interrupted Eph, "it was 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