“The Grampus is a good thing. The Japs are able to tell a good thing when they see it, and that’s what makes the Sons of the Rising Sun so hungry either to buy the submarine or send her to the bottom in such a way that she can’t come up. They’re a lot of hotheads, that’s what they are, and they don’t care a picayune what happens to them just so they can get in some wild stroke that, in their overheated estimation, may benefit Nippon.
“I don’t know as we can blame them. It hasn’t been so mighty long since they broke through their chrysalis of heathendom, and they are drunk with their success in their late unpleasantness with Russia—Russia, a country that has been our firm friend ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.
“Well, you have faced desperate risks, and you may be compelled to face more. I wish I could assure you that there were no more troubles in sight, but the Japs are a persistent race, and whenever young firebrands like these Sons of the Rising Sun get started at anything they never know when to let go. But,” and here the consul brought his fist emphatically down on the table, “I don’t think you can possibly meet any greater dangers than you have already met and successfully passed through. Bearing that in mind, I’d be willing to bet every dollar I’ve got that Bob Steele will make good, and deliver this old catamaran at Mare Island, right side up with care, and everybody smiling—except, of course, the Sons of the Rising Sun. I’ll back Young America against Young Japan any day. Catch my drift? That’s about all. Come in and eat with me—we have to eat, you know, no matter how hot it is. After dinner we’ll look after Mr. Tolo, and I’ll give Bob a letter to an agent who will supply him with gasoline, or any other old thing that happens to be necessary in order to make a submarine go. There won’t be any water in the gasoline, either. Come on, now, and let’s try and be cheerful. Heaven knows you boys have got enough ahead of you to make your hair stand on end like quills on the fretful porcupine, but what we’re not sure of hadn’t ought to trouble us.”
Bob and Glennie had a good dinner, and after it was over the consul went with them to the Grampus and gave the craft a sizing. He was charmed with the boat, and all the useful odds and ends of machinery with which she was packed.
Following that, he went to the prison chamber and surveyed Tolo as he lay bound and helpless on the floor.
“You’re a nice young patriot, I must say!” exclaimed the consul, as he looked down on the quiet, uncomplaining Japanese, “but you met more than your match when you went up against Bob Steele. Where are the rest of your rascally outfit?”
“I speak nothing, honorable sir,” replied Tolo, “not because of any disrespect for you, but out of regard for my dear Nippon.”
The consul stared, and then he groaned.
“High-handed outrage stalks the seas,” he muttered, “and this poor fool calls it love of country! Well, well! I wonder what Commodore Perry would say if he could hear that? The Japs are our great and good friends, all right, but we don’t count for much when there’s a little thing like a patent boat on the program. I’ll take care of you, my lad,” he added to Tolo. “You’ll stay in Para until the first United States warship comes along, and then you’ll travel to the States and give an account of yourself.”
A few minutes later the consul left the boat, and, an hour after he was gone, police officers arrived and carried the misguided Tolo to the municipal bastile.