would the American Government buy it from me? No,
sir! I'd have to sell the cannon to England, Germany or Japan--or
else starve while Congress was talking of doing something about it in
the next session. Mr. Farnum, you have the finest, and the only real
submarine torpedo boat. Yet, if you want to go on building and
selling these craft, you'll have to dispose of most of them abroad."

"I hope not," responded the shipbuilder, solemnly.

Having said his say, Hal subsided. He was likely not to speak again for
an hour. As a class, engineers, having to listen much to noisy
machinery, are themselves silent.

It was well along in the afternoon, a little past the middle of October.
For our three young friends, Jack, Hal and Eph, things were dull just
at the present moment. They were drawing their salaries from the
Pollard company, yet of late there had been little for them to do.

Yet the three submarine boys knew that big things were in the air.
David Pollard was away, presumably on important business. Jacob Farnum
was not much given to speaking of plans until he had put them through
to the finish. Some big deal was at present "on" with the Government.
That much the submarine boys knew by intuition. They felt, therefore,
that, at any moment, they were likely to be called into action--to be
called upon for big things.

As Jack and Hal sat in the office, silent, while Jacob Farnum turned to
his desk to scan one of the papers lying there, the door opened. A boy
burst in, waving a yellow envelope.

"Operator said to hustle this wire to you," shouted the boy, panting a
bit. "Said it might be big news for Farnum. So I ran all the way."

Jacob Farnum took the yellow envelope, opening it and glancing hastily
through the contents.

"It _is_ pretty good news," assented the shipbuilder, a smile wreathing
his face. "This is for you, messenger."

"This" proved to be a folded dollar bill. The messenger took the money
eagerly, then demanded, more respectfully:

"Any answer, sir?"

"Not at this moment, thank you," replied Mr. Farnum. "That is all; you
may go, boy."

Plainly the boy who had brought the telegram was disappointed over not
getting some inkling of the secret. All Dunhaven, in fact, was wildly
agog over any news that affected the Farnum yard. For, though the
torpedo boat building industry was now known under the Pollard name,
after the inventor of these boats, the yard itself still went under the
Fa