Description
The Submarine Boys and the Middies
CHAPTER I: THE PRIZE DETAIL
“The United States Government doesn’t appear very anxious to claim its
property, does it, sir?” asked Captain Jack Benson.
The speaker was a boy of sixteen, attired in a uniform much after the
pattern commonly worn by yacht captains. The insignia of naval rank were
conspicuously absent.
“Now, that I’ve had the good luck to sell the ’Pollard’ to the Navy,”
responded Jacob Farnum, principal owner of the shipbuilding yard, “I’m not
disposed to grumble if the Government prefers to store its property here
for a while.”
Yet the young shipbuilder—he was a man in his early thirties, who had
inherited this shipbuilding business from his father—allowed his eyes to
twinkle in a way that suggested there was something else behind his words.
Jack Benson saw that twinkle, but he did not ask questions. If the
shipbuilder knew more than he was prepared to tell, it was not for his
young captain to ask for information that was not volunteered.
The second boy present, also in uniform, Hal Hastings by name, had not
spoken in five minutes. That was like Hal. _He_ was the engineer of the
submarine torpedo boat, “Pollard.” Jack was captain of the same craft, and
could do all the talking.
Jacob Farnum sat back, sideways, at his rolltop desk. On top of the desk
lay stacked a voluminous though neat pile of papers, letters, telegrams
and memoranda that some rival builders of submarine torpedo boats might
have been willing to pay much for the privilege of examining. For, at the
present moment, there was fierce competition in the air between rival
American builders of submarine fighting craft designed for the United
