“Say, is this a recitation?” asked Bob, with a smile.
“No, I’m just explaining,” answered Ned. “Periscope is made up in the same way, from Latin or Greek words, and it literally means to ‘look all around’.”
“Good!” exclaimed Jerry. “But even looking all around doesn’t seem to show that submarine. It has completely disappeared. And I’d have given a good deal to have a good look at her.”
“So would I,” spoke Ned. “I’d like to have gone aboard.”
“You would!” cried Bob. “Would you go under in her?”
“I would—yes, if I had the chance,” replied Ned. “But I’d prefer one of our own United States boats to that foreign one. I didn’t like the looks of that man with the white beard, and if what I read is true——”
“Say, what was that you started to say?” interrupted Jerry. “You were on the point of remarking it when the craft went to the bottom.”
“Yes, I was,” admitted Ned. “I saw something in the papers not long ago—it was a foreign dispatch, I think—to the effect that a German had perfected a most wonderful and dangerous submarine. It had motors operated by a new electrical chemical, that could be stored in a small space, and the article intimated that the submarine could even cross the ocean.”
“Of course that’s remarkable, in a way,” admitted Jerry, “but you seemed to have something else on your mind. What was it? Loosen up, Ned.”
“Oh, it’s no great secret. I didn’t just want those fellows on the submarine to hear me; that’s all. But this article went on to say that the inventor was a sort of crank, with a very vindictive disposition, and that he imagined all other nations were the enemy of Germany. He seemed to think that if the German war officials took a sufficient number of his submarines the Kaiser would be Lord of the Sea, and could wipe everything else out of existence. That’s one reason I wouldn’t care to go aboard that boat.”