It was a copy of the Providence Journal that had come into Bridgeford by the morning mail. Seymour was ready to "blow up" with indignation.
"What do you know about that!" he was groaning.
Jay and Dick, their faces buried in the outspread sheet, read every detail of the news item. How their erstwhile shipmate, Carl Weddigen, he of the diamond-theft fame and the U-boat plot, had slipped his chains at Boston, dropped over the side of the Exeter and successfully made his getaway. Within a few days he was to have been haled before a Naval Board of Inquiry; and both Jay and Dick were to have appeared as witnesses in the case.
"Out of luck!" expostulated Jay. "Just after we round up that bird—then they let him slip away. Fine state of affairs."
Weddigen was soon forgotten in the plans for going aboard the Jules Verne and testing her out on the initial voyage. Captain Austin, meeting the three lads near the drydock, told them they should report for duty at seven o'clock the next morning. Jay had heard that they would go out that same afternoon; but now their chief executive told them it would be morning before they would get their first peek at the new salvage ship.
The hours dragged slowly, so impatient were the youths to see the Jules Verne at last. They had heard so much about her and speculated so much on the kind of ship that it might be and how it would operate. Even carefree Larry Seymour, not much given to the serious side of life, avowed for once all this secrecy had "got his goat."
"Must be something wonderful's all I can say," he laughed with a toss of the head.
"And tomorrow we're to find out all about it," Jay could hardly wait.
Morning found the three youths on hand early. Fismes, the war dog, accompanied them to the yard. Jay had wanted to take the pet along on the Nemo as a mascot, but it had been decided there was no space on the under-water craft for a dog. Now it might be different; for the Jules Verne was a surface cruising craft from which under-water operations were conducted—that much the boys had wormed out of Captain Austin.