“Not jes’ a teeny drop, Marse Chadwick? Ah sho’ does feel po’ful po’ly.”
“Not a drop, Jupe. Now be off and catch some fish for dinner.”
“And look out you don’t get run over by a whale this time,” chuckled Tom.
“Gollygumption! An ole whale, de daddy uv all de whalesses in de seas, couldn’ hev scared me no wusser dan dat contraption,” declared Jupe as he shuffled off.
It was something like a month after this incident that a group stood in Mr. Dancer’s workshop surveying the original White Shark. The addition of the Archimedian screws on her sides had materially altered her appearance, and made her look more like some sort of fish than ever. A long period of difficult and disheartening work had been concluded but an hour before, and now the finishing touches were complete.
“My! my! Things hev changed since I sailed on the old Ohio!” sighed Silas Hardtack, a grizzled old veteran of the Seven Seas, as the party which consisted of Jack, his father, Tom, and Mr. Dancer, stood regarding their finished work, in which all had had a share, “when I went to sea we’d hev called such do-dads as thet ‘floating tea-kettles.’”
“And a few years from now, submarines and fast cruisers driven by crude oil engines in place of cumbrous machinery will be the backbone of the navy,” prophesied Mr. Chadwick.
Old Silas has already been mentioned as Mr. Dancer’s assistant and factotum. He had a great habit of perpetually recalling the way things were done when he “sailed on the old Ohio.” In fact, if one believed all that he attributed to the craft of his youth, there never was such another ship.
“Well, now that our work is done, I’m anxious to try if the White Shark, Sr., works as well as her Junior type,” said Mr. Chadwick. “Are you ready for a test, Dancer?”
“There are some last adjustments to the machinery that I want the boys’ help on,” was the response, “and then I think everything will be in readiness for the supreme test.”