“What do you want? Where are you going?” demanded the marine.

“I know I look pretty tough,” Jack admitted, shamefacedly. “But I belong
aboard the ’Farnum,’ one of the submarines that arrived last night. And
I’m due there at this minute. Please don’t delay me.”

“All right,” replied the sentry, after surveying the boy from head to foot
once more. Then he added, in a lower tone, with just the suspicion of a
grin showing at the corners of his mouth:

“Say, friend, for a stranger, you must have had a high old frolic in the
town last night.”

Jack frowned. The sentry’s grin broadened a bit. As he did not offer to
detain the boy longer, Benson hurried on along one of the walks. He took
as short a course as he could making straight for the Basin, where he made
out the “Hudson” and the two submarines.

“Hey! There’s the captain!” shouted Eph, wonderingly, for Somers’s eyes
were sharp at all times.

Out of the conning tower sprang Hal Hastings, looking eagerly in the
direction in which Eph Somers pointed:

“Eh?” muttered another person, lounging near the rail of the gunboat. Then
Lieutenant Commander Mayhew, after a keen, wholly disapproving look at the
hard-looking figure of a young man at the landing, started, as he
muttered: