“How well I shall presently demonstrate, you know,” was the reply. “But I found that the crew was tricky. They helped me get a treasure aboard then calmly turned pirates themselves and ran away with the treasure. For nearly a year I had hard luck. Then I succeeded in locating a large sum of gold that had been buried by a man’s grandfather.
“My past experiences had taught me that I could not trust anyone. Therefore I determined to prosecute my search in other channels.
“Piece by piece in different shops I had this vessel constructed after my own designs. The pieces were assembled in a part of the Gulf of Mexico little frequented. There I tried out the undersea boat, named it the ‘U-13’—the ‘U’ standing for Undersea and the ‘13’ in defiance of the popular superstition. But I found a new difficulty.
“The instrument, although working perfectly on land, was not reliable under the ocean, for as you know there is a large amount of suspended gold in sea water. That made the instrument unreliable.”
“What did you want to go under water for, anyway?” asked Ned.
“Gold!” was the curt reply. “So I had to construct another device that would neutralize the local attraction of the sea water just on the same principle that the mariner has the two iron balls near his compass to overcome the local attraction on his vessel.
“Then I was prepared to pursue my quest for treasure undisturbed. My first venture was the recovery of a large sum from a sunken ship in Havana harbor. This provided me sufficient funds so that I put stores aboard and came across to seek for the vessels of the Spanish Armada.”
“How did you get across the Atlantic?” asked Jimmie incredulously.
“In this vessel!” was the reply. “And most of the way under water, too, you know! I didn’t want anyone to see me!”