CHAPTER XIX
JACK'S CALLER AT THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB
"Ho-ho! Haw-haw! Woof!"
Eph found himself started again, the very instant the boys found themselves in the lower corridor of the building.
"Let him alone," uttered Jack, scornfully. "The poor fellow had better work it all out of his system."
"But, Hal, your face—when the policeman took you, on Millard's complaint!" sputtered Somers, next going off into another burst of laughter.
"It didn't seem funny, at the time," returned Hal Hastings, quietly.
"Ho-ho! Haw! Of course, not. Say, Hal, can you do me a tremendous favor? Can you look, just for a moment, the way you did when that blue-coat pinched you?"
Hal began to laugh, despite the fact that his loss of Millard still rankled under his quiet outside.
"Now, hush up," warned Benson, suddenly. "Here comes Lieutenant Ulwin, who has undertaken to present us at the United Service Club. Idiots are barred from the club, you know, Eph."
By a great exercise of will power Eph managed to straighten his face by the time that the lieutenant overtook them. They entered a cab. By this time the young naval officers were beginning to understand that it is the usual custom to go about Washington in a carriage.
"Have you ever been at a Service Club before?" inquired their guide.
"We breakfasted at the club at Norfolk this morning?" Jack answered.
"Your acquaintance with our Service clubs is not very large, then?"
"We have also been at the club at Fort Craven."
"Oh!" smiled Lieutenant Ulwin. "I guess you gentlemen have been about a little more in the two branches of the service, than I had suspected. You have seen the officers of both the Army and the Navy at play?"
"Mostly at table, I should say," laughed Benson.
"The club is the only place where we can go and get away from shop-talk," continued Ulwin. "As a rule the Army and Navy men at our club do not talk much shop. It may be different to-day, however."
"Why to-day?" asked Jack.
"Because—well, you see, I am introducing three rather famous strangers to-day."
"Meaning—" began Hal, quietly.
"You young gentlemen, of course. The whole nation has heard much about the submarine boys. Yet it is in the Army and the Navy, after all, that the deepest, most abiding interest in you exists."
"This red spot on my cheek isn't a blush," explained Ensign Eph, suddenly. "It's where a mosquito bit me."
"I am not joking," replied Ulwin, with a friendly smile. "All the officers of the Navy know about you by this time."
"They'll be greatly disappointed, when they see us, then, won't they?" laughed Hal Hastings.
"Now, see here," protested Eph, earnestly, "I can stand a good deal. But, if they see us walking around the club, and ask who left the lid off the can of shrimps—I'll fight!"
Ulwin laughed heartily.
"I shall have to pass the word to our worst jokers," he smiled, "that it won't be safe for the fellow who starts in to tease you young men."
"Why, if anyone does start, we've got to keep our tongues behind our teeth," returned Hal. "We're only boys—kids—and we can't say anything smart to men who have been a good many years in the service."
"You can answer back, if anyone starts to have any fun with you," replied Lieutenant Ulwin. "Remember, a club is where all men stand on an equal footing. If an admiral gets after you, you will do well to swallow any witticism he may try on you. But with any officer below an admiral you don't have to be so careful."
Eph Somers immediately began to look thoughtful. Now, Eph did know how to say caustic things when occasion seemed to demand.
"Here we are," announced Lieutenant Ulwin, suddenly, as the cab stopped before the club building.
Hal went in at Ulwin's side. Jack gripped Eph by the elbow, pulling the auburn-haired one back a few paces.
"Now, see here, Eph, remember that we don't want any funny answers inside."
"But Ulwin says—"
"You listen to what I'm saying, Eph. I've known you longer than Mr. Ulwin has. Just remember that we're boys—b-o-y-s—boys. Not one of us is quite eighteen yet. If we've gained a little fame for five minutes, we mustn't begin to imagine that we're eight feet high and on a par with men forty years old. So be careful, Eph. If anyone starts to have any fun with you, come back at him a different way."
"How?" whispered Eph.
"Look stupid."
"What?"
"Look stupid."
"I don't see much in that."
"Why, it's the funniest answer possible; and, besides, it isn't fresh or forward."
"How do you make that out?" Eph inquired.
"Why, Eph, boy, if you're half as famous as you may think you are, then folks will know you can't be stupid. So, if you pretend to be, you'll have everyone guessing what you mean by looking that way. On the other hand, if you look stupid, and no one is surprised, then you'll discover that that's just the way the crowd had you sized up in advance."
"I see," nodded Eph, but it was plain that Jack's almost direct command was not wholly pleasing to Somers.
The two comrades now caught up with Ulwin and Hal at the elevator.
"We'll go up to the reading room, first," proposed Lieutenant Ulwin.
"That's where the afternoon crowd is usually found."
Anyone who had been looking for "color" or pomp would have been disappointed. The only uniforms in sight were those worn by two bell boys. The officers of the Army and Navy present were all in citizen dress. They looked like a lot of cheerful, prosperous business men.
"Hullo, Ulwin, what are you doing with my friends from Dunhaven?" eagerly called one young man, rising hastily and coming forward. "Benson, I'm glad to see you. And you, Hastings. And you, Somers."
"Didn't know you knew the young gentlemen, McCrea," broke in Ulwin.
"Don't know them? When they made me the laughing-stock of every mess-room crowd in the Navy for months!" retorted McCrea.
Jack, Hal and Eph were shaking hands with the speaker with a good deal of pleasure.
It was Lieutenant McCrea, one-time watch officer on the battleship "Luzon." At one time McCrea had doubted that submarine boats were, in all respects, as wonderful craft as was claimed. The submarine boys had paid him back in most laughable fashion. Lieutenant McCrea, at one time, had felt himself much aggrieved over the wholesome teasing of his brother officers in consequence; but he had long since learned to accept the whole incident as a good and deserved joke.
Now, McCrea stood wringing the hands of the boys as though he had found long-lost friends.
"What are you doing these days?" McCrea wanted to know. "Anything besides testing new boats at Dunhaven?"
"You must greet them as comrades, McCrea," continued Lieutenant Ulwin.
"What? Cadets at Annapolis?"
In this case McCrea wondered at their being there, for cadets would be considered forward who visited an officers' club.
"Benson is a lieutenant, his friends ensigns," replied Ulwin.
"Come, come!" laughed McCrea. "I'm easy—these boys know that. But don't tell me—"
"Fact, though," replied Ulwin. "They hold special appointments, for some special duty or other. I'm here, at the direction of the Navy Department, to introduce these young brother officers of ours, and to procure ten-day cards for them."
By this time the news had spread. A score of officers, young or middle-aged, were crowding about. Ulwin had his hands full introducing the submarine boys. Yet they stood the ordeal well. The habit of command, based on discipline, had given these boys plenty of poise and self-possession. Nor were any attempts made, at that time, to have any good-humored fun with them. Half a dozen officers representing foreign navies were present. These, too, came in for introductions. The foreigners were, mainly, military or naval officers attached to foreign embassies at Washington.
"By Jove, Benson, I've had it in mind, for some time, that I wanted to meet you and grasp your hand," murmured Lieutenant Abercrombie, of the British Navy, as he drew Lieutenant Jack to one side. "By Jove, old fellow, I want to meet you soon and have a good old talk all by ourselves."
"That will be most agreeable to me," nodded Jack, pleasantly.
"And your comrades, too," added Abercrombie. "You know, you're already known on the other side. Fact, I assure you. Only the other day I picked up a London magazine and read quite an account of the doings of you three. I was especially interested in an account of how you three discovered a way of leaving a submarine at the bottom and swimming to the surface; then diving and re-entering the craft while she's still on the bottom. But your method is a secret, I suppose?"
"Yes," smiled Jack. "At least, the American Navy alone shares the secret with us."
"Oh, I'm not asking it, you know, old fellow," Lieutenant Abercrombie assured him.
"Is Mr. Benson here?" called a bell-boy, from the doorway.
"Very much so," replied Lieutenant Ulwin, dryly.
"May I give you a message, sir?" asked the bell-boy, coming closer.
After excusing himself, Benson stepped aside with the boy. Yet the latter spoke loudly enough for several to overhear.
"There's a lady, downstairs at the door, would like to see you, sir.
She says it is very, very important, sir."
"Did she give any name?" inquired astonished Jack.
"No, sir; she begged you would overlook that, sir, and just step down to the door for a few moments."
"All right; I'll go," nodded Benson. "But it looks queer."
Excusing himself to his host, Ulwin, and to some of the officers with whom he had been chatting, the leader of the submarine boys went quickly to the coat-room for his hat, then descended in the elevator.
"Vairee strange place, zis, for a lady to follow a zhentleman—to hees club," drawled a French captain.
One or two of the others laughed, imagining that this was some flirtation in which the submarine boy had been engaged. But Eph flared up a bit, looking very red, as he muttered:
"It's only fair to tell you, gentlemen, that we submarine boys don't appreciate jokes at the expense of the finest fellow who ever lived—Mr. Jack Benson!"
"Good boy" murmured Teal.
Yet, when an hour had slipped by, and Benson had not returned, even his loyal comrades began to wonder a good deal. From that frame of mind they passed on, at the end of another hour, to worry.