CHAPTER II

"FRENCH SPOKEN HERE"


"Well, what do you think of that?"

It was Eph Somers who put the question, and the time was some fifteen
minutes later.

Captain Jack had met his two comrades up on the main street of the
village. He had told them, with a good deal of amusement, of his late
talk with the German.

Hal Hastings didn't say a word, but his eyes twinkled.

"I wouldn't have minded," laughed Jack, "but it was the Professor's
cock-sureness that I was to be Germany's oyster."

"Is he an old man?" asked Hal.

"Not very," Jack answered. "Perhaps not old enough to know better.
Anyway, if I were going to a foreign government, Germany would be about
the last country. Germany is our rival in building a large navy. About
every other month the experts in Germany sit down to figure whether they
are anything ahead of us in the tonnage of warships, and, if so, whether
there is any danger of our catching up with them. Now, unless the
Germans have a notion that they may need, to fight us one of these