“And think of the service you could render science,” broke in Professor Snodgrass. “There are wonders of the sea never even dreamed of, and we could bring them to light. Oh, I must see when Dr. Klauss can let me get after those hermit crabs.”
“Are we still moving?” asked Bob, beginning to dress.
“We seem to be,” said Jerry, as he felt a tremor throughout the craft that showed her engines to be working. “No telling where we are, though.”
“Well, let’s get up, and see what Mr. Sheldon has to say, boys,” advised Jerry.
They were about to don the borrowed garments when a member of the crew—the same one who had taken away their own clothes to dry—came back with them. The boys were glad to get into their own things again.
“How large a crew is there aboard?” asked Jerry.
“There are five of us, but really three men can work the whole ship,” replied the sailor. “There are two old German scientists aboard, who will help if they are needed, but I and my two mates generally work together. My name is Ted Rowland, and my mates’ names are Bill Burke and Tom Flynn. We’re machinists, and we’re all wishing we hadn’t signed for this voyage. But we’re in for it now. You see we’re all Irish,” he explained with a twinkle in his blue eyes, “and the Dutch and the Irish never mix any too well. Still I shouldn’t talk so. Dr. Klauss pays us well.”
“What about his German friends?” asked Bob.
“Oh, we don’t see much of them. They keep to their own quarters, all the time figuring something on paper, drawing plans, and the like. Dr. Klauss spends a lot of time with them, too. They’re planning something, but we’re not supposed to know what it is.”
“How did you come to get in with the doctor?” asked Jerry, who thought it would be a good plan to obtain all the information he could.