“Well, just about five hundred thousand tons of water.”
Herc peered over the side and then looked around in a puzzled way.
“What’s become of it all?”
“Of what?”
“Of all that misplaced water.”
“Oh, it’s just distributed about. It is merely a technical term.”
“I suppose the misplaced water goes to the same place that your lap goes to when you stand up,” commented Herc, grinning broadly.
“I reckon that’s about it, Herc. Isn’t it good to get to sea again, though? They gave us a fine time in ’Frisco, but, after all, a sailor’s place is out on the ocean.”
“That accounts for so many recruits being all at sea,” rejoined Herc whimsically.
On the bridge of each ship stood a middy working a little instrument of bars and glasses and wheels, graduated to a scale of figures and called a stadimeter. It showed to a fraction of an inch the exact distance each ship was from the one preceding her, and according to the readings of this instrument the number of revolutions of the ship’s propellers would be slowed down or speeded up.