"This operation is repeated from two to six hundred times a minute," Jack went on, "and that causes the continuous action of the machinery which sends the boat along."
"What is there about that so complicated?" demanded Frank. "Everybody you hear talking of an engine seems to speak as if it were one of the mysteries of the universe."
"It is usually the electric system which gets out of order," was the reply, "but sometimes the gasoline section balks. A man often has to try so many different things when his engine stops that he actually does not know which one remedies the evil and sets the thing in motion."
"All right!" Frank said. "Now show me how to start the thing."
"That's easy. First turn on your gasoline, as you would turn water from a faucet into a kitchen sink. The gasoline fills the carbureter, which is the thing which feeds the engine automatically. Then you turn on your electricity by shifting a switch. That is to supply the spark. Then turn the fly-wheel two or three times so as to get the vapor into the cylinder and secure the first explosion. That is all there is to it. I hope you do learn to run this boat, so I can get away now and then!"
"You may get away farther than you want to!" cautioned Frank.
The Manhattan was a plain, usable boat, twenty-five feet long and ten feet wide, with bow and stern rather square in order to make more room inside. The cabin was ten feet long, with strong oak sides and brass-rimmed ports for light and ventilation. The cockpit, or outdoor sitting room, was of the same length as the cabin.
The engine was a plain, solidly built machine, with two cylinders, and rated at ten horsepower, with a speed of fifteen miles an hour. It was installed under a short bridge-deck in front of the cabin, while the gasoline tanks, holding fifty gallons, were hidden under the cockpit seats.
The cabin had two wide slatted berths, supplied with hair mattresses, a movable table, an ice chest, a small coal range—the boat was not designed especially for tropical use—an ice-chest and an alcohol stove for cooking. The storage lockers and water tanks had a capacity of a week's supply of stores for four persons. It was a government boat, and was in good repute as a racer in and about Manila, in spite of its blunt bow and wide beam.
Frank pottered away at the machinery until he announced that it was like taking candy away from the children to run it, and then the two retired to the cabin to get rid of their wet garments.