have you any idea at all what
orders mean on shipboard? And I'm under the strictest orders not to
let anyone aboard."

"Get your orders changed, then," proposed another newspaper man,
cheerfully.

"If you'll wait, I'll see if I can," muttered Eph, hopefully.

"Oh, we'll wait."

Williamson's head had appeared in the manhole way.

"Come out on deck, and don't let anyone on board unless we get orders
to that effect," murmured Somers, passing the conning tower. Then,
through a megaphone, the submarine boy hailed the gunboat, asking if it
would be possible for him to talk with Jack Benson. Benson soon
afterward came forward on the "Waverly." Eph explained the situation.
Jack shouted back to allow the visitors on the platform deck, but not
to let any of them into the conning tower, or below.

So Eph turned to the two boatloads of visitors, explaining:

"Perhaps you men can get that all changed if you come out to-morrow, when
the captain is here. But the best I can do to-day is to let you up here
on the platform deck."

"Oh, well," returned the first newspaper man to get up there beside the
boy, "you can tell us, as well as anyone, about your trip down the coast
and the way you slipped in here."

"And also," chimed in another, "you're the young man who came straight
up through the water when she was beneath the surface?"

Eph admitted that he was.

"That's the thing _I_ want to know about," continued the second newspaper
man. "I've heard before about that wonderful trick of leaving a
submerged submarine, and coming to the surface. How is the thing done?"

Eph regarded this questioner with wondering patience, before he replied:

"You want to know so little that I'm sorry I'm deaf in my front teeth and
dumb in my right ear."

"That's on you, Paisley!" chuckled one of the newspaper men.

Then three or four began to ask questions at the same time, which caused
young Somers to wait, then remarked blandly:

"Now, if you'll all kindly talk at once, I'll give you, in a few words,
a straight account of the plain features of our trip down here, including
our run under water. But, if there's any question I don't answer for
you, you'll understand, I hope, that it's because I know it would be
bad manners for me to tell you anything that only officers of the Navy
have a right to know."

"All right, Commodore," nodded one of the newspaper men, good-humoredly.
"You're all right. Go ahead and spin your yarn in you