Jimmy smiled rather grimly. "It is hard to understand, I know," he agreed. "You are awfully good to let me tell you my troubles. But don't you see that the ship-building firm might, by fraud, get out a patent on my little boat and build dozens of them before I am heard from. Once they have patented my invention it would be difficult, indeed, to get it away from them. Even with the government to back me it would take years of fighting. And I don't know how long it may take me to build another model."
Eleanor felt dreadfully sorry. She did not understand the Lieutenant's explanation. But patents and inventions and any other kind of business discussion were a mystery to her.
Madge and Miss Jenny Ann tried to look very wise. Phil slipped quietly over to a far corner of the room. Lillian was half asleep.
"If you could get to Washington in time, with another model of your boat, before that wicked business firm gets out its patent on the stolen model, you might be able to prevent their securing the patent after all, Lieutenant Jimmy?" questioned Madge earnestly, bringing her brows together in a serious frown.
"Yes, if I were on the spot with the model, and the description of my beautiful little boat, I think I could make things hum for the other fellows," Jimmy agreed mournfully.
Phil came out of the dark corner that held her cherished trunk. She had a box in her arms about a foot and a half long. It looked like a huge box of candy, although it must have been very heavy from the way Phil held it.
She put the box down before Lieutenant Jimmy. "Here is the box you gave me to keep for you," she announced gravely. "I am still willing to take care of it for you, but I wished you to know I still have it."
"Great Scott!" cried Jimmy Lawton for the second time that evening. "Do you mean you have kept this box for me through shipwreck and every other kind of disaster? What a girl you are, Miss Alden! I never meant to speak of it to you."
With shaking hands the young man opened the box. Inside the pasteboard box was a wooden one. Lieutenant Jimmy lifted out as perfect a little toy boat as ever was seen. It was complete in every detail. Lieutenant Jimmy was not ashamed of the fact that his eyes were full of tears as he looked gratefully at Phil.
"It is the exact copy of the model of the torpedo-boat destroyer that was stolen from me," he explained to the girls. "I gave it to Miss Alden to keep for me, because I feared foul play."