"You can look around all you want, Ewald and Biffens," suggested Mr. Danvers, "and see if you can find any great differences between this craft and the 'Pollard' and the 'Farnum.'"
The two sailors, accordingly, made themselves wholly at home in the interior of the submarine.
"Both men have put in tours of duty on the first two boats turned out by your company," explained the officer. "They know all about the two Pollard boats that the Navy bought."
"Then they won't find very much that is different on board the 'Hastings,'" Jack replied. "All that is new here is in the way of a few more up-to-date little mechanisms and devices. A man used to running the old 'Pollard' would really be wholly at home here."
A few minutes, only, were allowed for inspection of the newest submarine of the lot. By this time the workmen in the small boat had made fast a towing hawser between the bow of the old scow and the stern towing bitts of the "Hastings."
"Use my men all you need to, in casting off, or in boat handling generally," requested Lieutenant Danvers. Jack therefore ordered Ewald and Biffens forward on the upper hull to cast loose from moorings. Hal stood the trick in the engine-room, while Jack himself sat at the wheel in the tower.
In another minute, despite her rather heavy tow, the "Hastings" was nosing briskly out of the harbor. The gasoline engines this little craft were of a "heavy service" pattern, which adapted the submarine to the work of towing at need.
"How far out do you want to go, sir!" asked Captain Jack, as the Navy lieutenant took a seat beside him in the tower, after Eph and the sailors had gone below.
"We want to be sure to be well out of the path of coastwise vessels," replied Danvers. "That's the main thing, you know. We can't take any risk of sinking a merchantman while we're having our fun."
"With this tow, then, it will be three o'clock before we get out where we really ought to be, sir."