EPH LEARNS SOMETHING NEW
"You are not as gallant as you were last night," murmured Mlle. Sara, in
a low tone.
"Last night I was ashore, on social pleasures bent," replied Jack.
"To-day, I am on duty, and duty must go ahead of everything else."
"And I am hungry," continued the young woman, pathetically. "In my
eagerness to see that boat that you command, my Captain, I came away
from the shore before going through the ceremony of breakfast. Do you
mean to say, Captain Benson, that you cannot conduct me to your cabin,
there to have that--your Japanese--serve me with at least a sandwich?"
"Mademoiselle," cried Jack, apologetically, "you can't have the faintest
idea how sorry I am that my instructions are what they are I feel wicked
as I look at your distress, but it is simply wholly impossible for me to
ask you below. I can have food served to you on deck, however."
"What? Eat here before the eyes of all Spruce Beach? And have it made
perfectly plain to every onlooker that I am not welcome here?" cried the
woman spy, reproachfully.
"Oh, but, indeed, you are welcome here," protested Jack. "As welcome as
I am permitted to make anyone. My orders, you know--I am a slave to
those orders."
"Yet there is some one aboard," urged Mlle. Nadiboff, in her most
pleading voice, while there was an almost tearful look in her pretty
eyes, "some one who can change the orders. Your Mr. Farnum, I take it.
Go to him, won't you, and plead with him for me? Go!"
One of her little, gloved hands rested on his arm, pushing gently.
But Jack Benson, though she made him feel inwardly at odds with himself,
thought more of his duty than of anything else.
"I am very sorry--awfully sorry, Mlle. Nadiboff. But won't you
understand that what you ask is wholly impossible?"
"Good-bye, then!" she said, resentfully, though gently, half turning
from him.
"You'll shake hands, won't you?" asked Jack, holding out his own right
hand.
"Perhaps, after I have talked with you on shore--when we meet again,"
she replied, a bit distantly. Then she turned to Williamson as her boat
came in close alongside. "Your hand, please. I am afraid I may slip."
Williamson helped that most attractive young woman down over the side,
lifting his cap after he had seen her safe aboard the rowboat. As
the harbor craft veered off, Captain Jack Benson lifted his cap with
all courtesy. Mlle. Sara Nadiboff bowed to him rather coldly.
"I suppose," sighed Jack, to himself, as he turned away, "a woman can't
begin to understand why we must be so secret aboard a submarine craft
that all the naval men in the world would like to know about. If she
only could understand!"
Had Benson been able to guess just how well the handsome young spy did
understand, and how much she had hoped to learn through appealing to his
interest in her, he would have been furious at the thought of his own
great simplicity.
"Your charming partner of last night was rather disappointed," observed
Hal Hastings.
"Yes; she must feel that I have used her mighty shabbily," Jack
responded. "I am afraid she won't forgive me."
"Oh, well, after a few days you'll never see her again," murmured Hal.
"Just because a girl is pleasant--and pretty--one can't forget all the
orders that he's working under."
Captain Jack Benson talked to himself in about the same strain, yet he
couldn't wholly get over the notion that he had been--though
helplessly--rude to a woman.
"You won't need me on deck any more, will you, sir?" asked Williamson,
saluting.
"No; I shall be on deck," Jack replied, returning the salute. "Very
likely Mr. Hastings will be here with me, for that matter."
Soon after the machinist had gone below Eph Somers returned to the deck.
"I've been posting that Kimono," Eph explained.
"Kamanako," laughed Captain Jack.
"Oh, it's all the same to me," sighed Eph. "To my untrained ear all
Japanese names sound alike."
"Whatever you do," warned Jack, "don't, hurt the poor fellow's feelings
by calling him Kimono."
"Why not?"
"Well, the Japanese are a proud and sensitive race.
"Suppose they are?"
"Do you know what 'Kimono' means, Eph?"
"Haven't even a guilty suspicion."
"It's the Japanese name for a woman's dress."
"Wow!" muttered Somers. "I shall surely have to, forget 'Kimono,' then.
What do you call his truly name?"
"Kamanako," Jack responded, and spelled it. Eph wrote the name down
on a slip of paper, saying:
"Thank you, Jack. I'll try to commit this name to memory. I don't want
to hurt the feelings of a sensitive little fellow. It would be a shame
to have to punch him if he felt insulted and made a pass at me."
"Punch him, eh?" laughed Jack in genuine enjoyment. "Eph! Eph! Don't
make any false start like that!"
"What are you talking about?" questioned Somers.
"Don't make the mistake, at any time, Of trying to punch that Japanese."
"Trying to?" gasped Somers. "Say, if I made a swing at that light
colored little chocolate drop, do you think I'd make a false pass and
hit my own nose?"
"You might be lucky if nothing worse happened," grinned Jack. "Eph,
did you never hear of the Japanese jiu-jitsu?"
"What's that?" demanded young Somers. "Slang name for something else
in the Jap wardrobe?"
"No; it's the Jap way of fighting," Captain Benson explained. "And you
want to remember, Eph, that's it's a mighty sudden system, too. It hits
like lightning. When the smoke clears away you see a little Japanese
bowing over you, and apologizing for having rudely tipped you over."
"And little Cabbage-Jacko could do that?" Eph grinned, incredulously.
"Say, it's wrong to tell me such funny things when I have a cracked lip."
"All right," sighed Jack. "But at least you've been warned."
Truth to tell, the young submarine commander wasn't much worried about
Eph's deliberately provoking any fistic encounter with a fellow much
smaller than himself. In the first place, the carroty-haired boy wasn't
quarrelsome, unless actually driven into a fight. At all times Somers
was too manly to take out wrath on anyone merely up to his own shoulder
height.
Nearly an hour later Jack Benson stepped through into the conning tower;
then moved down the spiral staircase.
His rubber-soled deck shoes made no noise. Thus it happened that the
young submarine commander came upon the new steward most un expectedly,
and without being seen by the little, brown man.
"Kamanako--you scoundrel!" shouted the young captain, beside himself
with sudden wrath.
For the Japanese, wholly absorbed in his present task, had deftly
removed the gauge from the midships submergence apparatus, and was now
dissecting the gauge itself, eyeing the parts with the knowing look of
an expert.
At sound of the captain's voice Kamanako wheeled calmly about, holding
up the gauge. The smile on the face of the Japanese was childlike and
bland.
"This very queer thing," he murmured. "What for you use
it--thermometer."
"No," retorted Jack Benson, frigidly, eyeing the detected one. "It's a
barometer, and it shows which way a meddler blows in!"
"I don't understand," remarked the Japanese, looking perplexed.
"Then I'll help you to understand. First of all, put that gauge down
on the table!"
Kamanako did so, then made a little bow.
"Now," continued Jack Benson, "take cap and go up on deck."
"What shall I do there, Captain?" asked Kamanako, politely.
"Well, you'll stand there until I see if you've done anything else on
board. If you haven't, you can then take a boat to the shore--and stay
there."
"What this mean, honorable Captain?" demanded Kamanako, a look of
offense beginning to creep into his little, brown face.
"Well, if you must have it," returned Benson, coldly, "it means that
I've found you spying into our mechanisms here. Now, a spy is a
creature no one cares to have about--least of all on a warship."
"You call me spy--call me ugly name like that?" cried Kamanako, showing
his teeth.
"Get your hat and go up on deck. Do you hear me?" insisted Captain Jack.
"I hear you, but I please myself about when I do it," retorted the
Japanese, drawing himself up to his full though not very imposing height.
"Then you'll go without waiting for your hat," retorted Benson, his
patience rapidly oozing now. He started toward the Japanese, just
as Eph, hearing the sound of talking, looked in and down the staircase.
"Gunpowder and smoke!" ejaculated the carroty-topped boy. "It's little
chocolate drop!"
"Are you going up on deck quietly and in an orderly way?" demanded
Benson, a resolute glitter in his clear, blue eyes.
"I please myself," retorted Kamanako, defiantly.
At that Jack Benson promptly forgot the warning he had given Eph, and
sprang at the inquisitive steward.
"You'll go--" began Benson.
He was in error, though. It was he himself who "went." As he reached
out with his right hand to seize Kamanako something happened. Exactly
what it was the young submarine captain never quite knew. But he found
himself sprawling under the seat at the opposite side of the cabin.
"Hi, yi! Wow!" exploded Eph, darting down the stairs. "Save some of
that for me!"
It was ready and waiting.
The carroty-topped boy crouched low, resting his hands on his knees,
after the manner of a football player awaiting an assault.
Kamanako slid in close. Ere Eph could seize him the Japanese let
himself fall lightly on one side. One of his feet hooked itself behind
Eph's advanced left ankle, the other foot pressing against the knee of
the same leg. Eph's ankle was yanked forward, his knee pressed back,
and Somers went toppling as a tree in the forest does.
Kamanako was so quickly on his feet again to suggest that he had fallen
and risen in the same movement. There was a quiet, yet dangerous, smile
on the face of the Japanese.
The door of the engine room opened swiftly though noiselessly.
Williamson, the machinist, took in the whole scene instantly. Hardly a
full step forward he took when his fist landed between the shoulders of
Kamanako, sending that young Japanese through the air, to land sprawling.
As Kamanako leaped to his feet he found himself blinking at the muzzle
of a revolver that the machinist held in his right hand.