"Well, we passed another submarine, two hours ago, and she was towing a torpedo. Said she had discharged it at a target and was going to beach it somewhere, and get it in shape for further use. But the bally joke of it is that the captain of that other submarine said that his boat was the United States submarine Grampus. It's a main queer go if there are two submarines of that name both belonging to the United States Government."
"Well, what do you think of that?" muttered Glennie, leaning out of the hatch. "The nerve of it!"
"That other boat was the Pom," called back Matt, "sent over to Chili by a firm of French shipbuilders. She was stolen from the harbor of Lota by a handful of Japs."
"Fancy that! Those Japs are——"
The rest of it Matt could not hear. The two boats had merely spoken each other in passing and were quickly out of reach of each other's megaphones.
"Those Sons of the Rising Sun are stealing our thunder," remarked Glennie.
"I suppose," returned Matt, "that it's a heap safer for the Japs to call their boat the Grampus than the Pom. If they happened to speak a vessel that knew of the stealing of the Pom results might prove disastrous if they told the truth."
Matt descended to the periscope room to give the news to Carl and Dick.
"Dot's der vorst yet!" grunted Carl. "Der itee oof dem Chaps calling deir old frog-eader poat der Grampus! I don'd like dot. Id vas some insulds."
"I guess we can stand it, Carl," said Matt.