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Updated: May 19, 2025
"Give me that envelope you just took from my pocket," he commanded. "Oh, will I?" rejoined Benson. "Ask Mr. Farnum for it." "Hold onto that envelope, Jack," commanded the boatbuilder. Jack Benson thrust it into his inner coat pocket, next firmly buttoning the front of his coat.
"Ay, but you like to be cock-sure of the stuff you drink, if e'er a man did," said the boatbuilder, whose eye blazed yellow in this frothing season of song and fun. "Right so, Will Moody!" returned the jolly butcher: "which means not wrong this time!" "Then, what's understood by your sticking prongs into your hostess here concerning of her brandy?
As for the boatbuilder, he stepped briskly across the room, pulling open the door of a cupboard. Taking out a broom, he began to sweep very carefully where the Melville group had sat or stood, and continued his sweeping across the threshold of the doorway. Then, returning, he tossed the broom into the cupboard. Stepping springily over, he dropped into his desk chair, letting out a hearty laugh.
The shore boat, with the hundred-pound anchor and cable in the bow, hovered just where Captain Jack had directed, but what could be going on in the submarine at the bottom of the little harbor? "Mr. Farnum, don't you sometimes get nervous over such things?" demanded one of the women. "Never," the boatbuilder assured her.
Had Melville played some trick on the boatbuilder? "I'm going ashore," said Eph the next morning, as soon as he had eaten his breakfast in the submarine cabin. "For anything especial?" asked Jack. "First, I want to know if anything's yet known of Mr. Farnum. Then, you know that Don Melville's in town. Why? His father's left and all the pounding workmen at his fake yard are gone, too.
Farnum, surveying them inscrutably, still held the door open. "This is dramatic and suicidal," said Mr. Melville, haughtily. "You take it too seriously," replied the boatbuilder, with a slight smile. "It is only good morning." "You're a fool, Farnum!" came the answer as Mr. Melville, in a rage, halted just inside the door.
"Better countermand the order, air," advised Jack, dryly. "But what on earth caused all the delay? What did it mean?" persisted the boatbuilder. "Answer me, Benson." "Why," laughed Jack, "when we started, I dropped a word or two about trying to make the exhibition dramatic, didn't I?" "If that's what you tried to do, young man," grunted one of the correspondents, "you've certainly succeeded.
Farnum, sir," thundered the elder Melville, stalking over to where the boatbuilder stood, "do you realize you're talking about my son?" "Well, why not?" asked Mr. Farnum, coolly. "It's becoming pretty evident that he isn't a bit too good to be talked about." "What does all this hubbub and outrage mean, anyway?" cried George Melville.
"Well, I'll put you where you want to be, of course," agreed the boatbuilder, though he spoke with some reluctance, for he realized that some great mystery underlay this whole affair. "Come up, Benson, and take the wheel," called Mr. Pollard. So Jack went up and out on the deck, Eph following him, while Hal went to the engine room to watch more of Grant Andrews' work there.
"That might have helped a week ago," said the boatbuilder. "I fear we're beyond help now, boys." He had already told them in confidence of the financier's threat. Just then Melville came along. Mr. Farnum and the boys would have ignored him, but he stepped up to the group and snapped: "You're a fine bunch!
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