young captain, your prospects with the company will continue just the
same. They will never know that you have taken this little fortune
from me. Ten thousand dollars! Think of that!"

"And you'd turn around and sell what I'd, give you for a half a million,
very likely."

"Oh, no, no, no!" disclaimed the Frenchman, solemnly. "There would be
nothing like that in it for me."

"Then no foreign government wants very badly to know about the Pollard
plans," inquired Jack.

"There is no government that would pay a really great fortune for such
information,". M. Lemaire assured the submarine boy.

"There is one," retorted Captain Jack, with a cunning smile.

"Which one?" demanded the Frenchman, doubtingly.

"One that you don't happen to represent," laughed Jack, quietly.

"Ah, I much doubt it, though I beg you to pardon me for saying so,
Captain Benson."

"Why man alive," grumbled Jack, "are you running away with the notion that
you're the only one who ever approached me with a view to finding out
how the Pollard boat runs? You claim, to be a spy for some other
government, M. Lemaire. Are you such an infant as to think yourself
the only spy in the field?"