The visit to the Holland X. had never left Oscar's mind. He remembered exactly how the submarine destroyer had been built and just how she was worked.
Once, when some of the naval vessels were at Newport, the Holland X. took a midnight trip among them, and Oscar was allowed on board.
The destroyer sank almost out of sight, and unknown to those on the big warships, passed completely around and under, first one vessel and then another.
"We could have blown every warship sky high!" said the inventor, but of this Oscar was doubtful. Yet he realized that the Holland X. was a grand boat and one calculated to do some terrific damage in a naval contest.
"But I'll build a better—wait and see," he said, over and over again, and when he was nineteen years of age he began to perfect the plans which had rested so long in his brain.
His boat was to be built of aluminum and steel—aluminum on account of its lightness and steel because of its strength. The craft was to be one hundred and fifteen feet long, sixteen feet wide, and eight to eleven feet six inches high. She was to be shaped like a stubby cigar and have three windows of glass on each side and one in front, and another in the stern. She was to have two small but exceedingly powerful screws, operated by an electric engine. She was to carry both natural and manufactured air, and had ample space for provisions and water, as well as ammunition, the latter to consist principally of torpedo tubes and dynamite bombs. She was to attain, under favorable circumstances, a speed of twenty-three knots an hour, and must work absolutely without noise, both while under water and while sailing over the surface.
Luckily for Oscar Pelham, his father had been rich, and upon the commodore's death, all the wealth went to the young inventor, to do with exactly as the young man saw fit. Several thousands of dollars were immediately spent upon a model of the Holland XI., as Oscar christened his craft, and this model was, one dark night, taken out on Long Island Sound for a trial.
No one was in the secret but Oscar and his particular friend, Andy Greggs, and it must be confessed that Andy was almost as anxious for success as the young inventor himself.
"If she runs all right, she'll be the biggest thing on the water," he declared.
"You ought to say, under the water," said Oscar.