dining room.

Lieutenant Danvers was not there, having pleaded another engagement. But
Rhinds and his lieutenant, Radwin, Messrs. Farnum and Pollard and all
three of the submarine boys were around the big table. Radwin had
succeeded in seating himself between Jack and Hal.

The dinner had been a fine one. Only one hitch had occurred; that was
when Mr. Rhinds, at the beginning of the meal, had tried to order several
bottles of wine.

"Just a moment, Mr. Rhinds," Farnum broke in. "None of the wine for us,
thank you."

"Oh, then, some lighter kind of wine," proposed Mr. Rhinds, anxiously.
"Something good, in which we can all pledge one another."

"None of that stuff, according to our way of thinking, is any good,"
replied Farnum, with a good-natured smile.

"Well, perhaps not for the boys," conceded the host of this dinner. "But
for the rest of us, as business men ready to cement a friendship."

"Alcohol isn't cement," replied Mr. Farnum, mildly. "At least, not with
our party. The time was, I admit, Mr. Rhinds, when business men often
tried to cement a business friendship with wine or liquor. But those
times have gone by. Drinking is out of date, nowadays. The keenest and
most dependable business men are those who do not drink. In fact, I may
go a little further, and say that, in our business at Dunhaven, we have
come to the point where we no longer have any dealings with business men