"I beg pardon?"
"Drop the foolishness!"
"You misunderstand me, I'm sure," said the King of Gee-Whiz. "At that time it was quite customary, indeed very fashionable, for young gentlemen to belong both to the Army and the Navy. Now, I remember with perfect distinctness that I shipped before the mast on her Majesty's submarine, the Equator."
Uncle Jim drew a long breath. "A submarine ain't got no mast," said he. "It crawls, on the bottom of the ocean."
"Don't mind him, friend," interrupted Curly. "He come from the short-grass country of Kansas, and he don't know a submarine from a muley cow. Go on, King."
"As I was saying," continued the latter, somewhat annoyed, "I shipped before the mast on her Majesty's submarine, the Equator, Captain Harry Oglethorpe commanding,—a great friend of mine, and a very brave and clever fellow. I knew him well before I got so deucedly down on my luck. But what was I saying?"
"About submarines—"
"Ah, yes, I remember; we left Portsmouth Harbor the 12th of August, 1357. It seemed a gruelling hard thing to us to sail just on the opening of the shooting season, but the wuzzies were troubling a bit.
"One day, as Sir Harry and I were sitting on deck before the mast, having a cigarette—"
"At the bottom of the sea—on deck!" gasped Uncle Jim Brothers.