A BRITISH SKIPPER.
Not more than five minutes after her propellers had been set in the
rising position the _White Shark_ emerged on the surface. As soon as
she reached it, power was shut down and the panel slid back. Then all
emerged on deck, where an odd sight met their eyes.
Through the twilight gloom they made out the form of a bluff-bowed,
square-rigged ship. Over her rail forward leaned the figures of several
sailors, while aft, a bearded man, whom they easily guessed to be the
captain, was regarding the sudden appearance of the submarine with
amazement.
In a voice that proclaimed him a dyed-in-the-wool Britisher, he hailed
them:
“‘Oo in the bloomin’ world may you be?” cried the astonished tar.
“Simply a party of experimenters,” rejoined Mr. Chadwick. “As you see,
this is a submarine.”
“Ho yuss,” came in a voice of intense sarcasm, “h’and does yer call
h’it h’experimentin’ ter carry away my bloomin’ anchor cable? I comes
to anchor here to wait for a pilot an’ you h’ups and cuts my rope.
‘Oo’s goin’ ter pay fer h’it? That’s what h’I want ter know.”
“I guess we can come to an amicable arrangement on that,” declared Mr.
Chadwick; “how much do you want for it?”
“Ho! I don’t suppose you’ll mind jus’ forkin’ over a ’undred pounds.”
“You’ve got another guess coming, my friend,” was Mr. Chadwick’s
rejoinder. “I happen to know something about the cost of cables myself.
I’ll give you sixty dollars for that rope, and even that’s too much.”
“‘Ow much is sixty dollars in your bloomin’ money?” inquired the
skipper of the square rigger, after he had turned to and ordered his
crew to lower another anchor.
“Twelve pounds,” rejoined Mr. Chadwick.
“H’all right, I suppose I ‘ave to toik h’it; but h’I never thought
that Halbert Jenkins ’ud live ter ’ave his bloomin’ cable cut by a
submarine. H’I suppose that the next thing that ’appens, my royals ’ull
be carried h’off by a h’airship.”
“A hair ship,” grinned Tom. “They must use barber poles for masts on a
craft of that kind.”
“H’I didn’t mean the ’air of the ’ead; h’I meant the h’air of the
h’atmosphere,” responded Captain Jenkins with dignity. “You bloomin’
h’American kids h’are too fresh, by a jolly sight.”
“We get that from living in the fresh h’air,” remarked Tom in a low
voice to Jack who, like the rest of the submarine’s crew, was on the
broad grin at the British skipper’s indignant explanation.
“If you young men will go below and start the engines we’ll run
alongside and pay for the damage we’ve done,” said Mr. Chadwick. “We
don’t want to become entangled in any international complications.”
As the boys dived below, followed by Mr. Dancer, they heard the British
captain confiding to Mr. Chadwick that a “good spanking would do them
kids a lot of good.”
With her propellers moving at slow speed, the whale-like form of the
submarine was ranged up alongside the big, black bulk of the British
ship. Mr. Chadwick handed up a roll of bills to the skipper of the old
craft and expressed his regret over the accident.
“H’ih, that’s all right,” grinned the seaman with airy good nature as
he counted the money with a wetted thumb, “h’it h’aint h’everybody wot
gets bumped by a submarine, guv’ner. It’ll be a rare yarn ter tell the
moites when h’I gets back to h’old h’England.”
Shortly afterward the submarine was put at full speed and headed for
the shore. The return voyage was made without incident and soon after
darkness had fallen, the odd craft lay once more at her moorings just
outside the construction shed.
To reach the shore they tumbled into a small boat that had been left
at the moorings, and with long, strong strokes Silas wielded the oars.
As the bow of the boat grazed the piles of the landing place, Mr.
Chadwick, his face glowing, turned to the inventor.
“Dancer, let me congratulate you on a brilliant success.”
“I reckon the boys here have contributed as much to it as I have,” he
said dryly.
“I wish we could get a chance to take a really long cruise on the
_White Shark_,” sighed Jack, hurrying on to prevent more compliments
from the grateful inventor.
“Perhaps we shall have an opportunity,” rejoined Mr. Dancer, little
imagining that in the near future his words were to prove prophetic.