"Gee, I was in a cold chill! I didn't know but the coffee would taste queer, and then they wouldn't drink it, and would kill us besides, before we had a chance to report to anybody. And I didn't dare taste it, for fear it was an instantaneous actor, and would do for me first. So I just passed the cups, and filled them up, and trusted to luck. And every man put his down without a word until it came to the Captain and, he said, 'It was worth keeping you for a little while. You make real German coffee, best in the world.' Everybody wanted two cups, and it took all there was; and the Captain thought that was a scream because there wasn't any left for Beany and me.
"Well, then, we commenced to wait to see what happened. And nothing happened. Nothing! The whole shooting match acted peppy. Beany whispered to me, 'Was it the wrong bottle?' And I didn't know what to think. I guess we came close enough to fire, and as soon as the machinery was ready, they swung a torpedo into the chute right behind that dead sailor, pressed the lever, and the dead man and the torpedo went shooting out together. Then they sent out another torpedo; and the Captain, at the periscope, commenced to talk in German, and the gunner looked and, say, his eyes bulged! But then something hit us a sort of glancing blow and we submerged right away. And my word! Just as we got down there, the Captain turned to the man at the steering gear to order him to the surface again I guess, and there he was all doubled over. He was out.
"The Captain took a couple of steps toward him, and a silly kind of look came into his face, and he just went down in a heap, and in one minute every man was flat on the floor. Well, there we were, alone you might say, with that submarine to get to the surface! And what we don't know about those boats would fill a dictionary.
"Beany said, 'Get her up if you can, Pork,' and he jumped for some rope, and commenced to tie everybody up. We didn't know how long that Anesthetique stuff was apt to work, and we didn't feel like taking any chances.
"So Beany made a good job of it, and I monkeyed with the steering gear the way they had told me, and the way I had seen, and up she came. Beany was just finishing, but I hurried up on deck, and, say, I thought you were going to do for me, anyhow!"
Porky seemed wholly unconscious of having accomplished anything out of the usual routine. He leaned back. "So that's all there is of that," he said.
"When did those fellows wake up?" asked Beany, "or did it kill them?"
Captain Greene laughed. "I am sorry you didn't keep the bottle," he said. "Your friends are only just now waking up. It is a prolonged process, and rather distressing, I should judge."
"I did save the bottle," said Porky. "Here it is, if you want it. I had to put it in my pocket, because I wanted to get it out of sight as soon as ever I could.
"Sensible of you," said the Captain. "I will have that bottle analyzed if there is anything left in it. There may be a new combination there that will be of value sometimes."