Chapter 5 EPH LEARNS SOMETHING NEW

"You are not as gallant as you were last night," murmured Mlle. Sara, in a low tone.

"Last night I was ashore, on social pleasures bent," replied Jack.

"To-day, I am on duty, and duty must go ahead of everything else."

"And I am hungry," continued the young woman, pathetically. "In my eagerness to see that boat that you command, my Captain, I came away from the shore before going through the ceremony of breakfast. Do you mean to say, Captain Benson, that you cannot conduct me to your cabin, there to have that-your Japanese-serve me with at least a sandwich?"

"Mademoiselle," cried Jack, apologetically, "you can't have the faintest idea how sorry I am that my instructions are what they are I feel wicked as I look at your distress, but it is simply wholly impossible for me to ask you below. I can have food served to you on deck, however."

"What? Eat here before the eyes of all Spruce Beach? And have it made perfectly plain to every onlooker that I am not welcome here?" cried the woman spy, reproachfully.

"Oh, but, indeed, you are welcome here," protested Jack. "As welcome as I am permitted to make anyone. My orders, you know-I am a slave to those orders."

"Yet there is some one aboard," urged Mlle. Nadiboff, in her most pleading voice, while there was an almost tearful look in her pretty eyes, "some one who can change the orders. Your Mr. Farnum, I take it. Go to him, won't you, and plead with him for me? Go!"

One of her little, gloved hands rested on his arm, pushing gently.

But Jack Benson, though she made him feel inwardly at odds with himself, thought more of his duty than of anything else.

"I am very sorry-awfully sorry, Mlle. Nadiboff. But won't you understand that what you ask is wholly impossible?"

"Good-bye, then!" she said, resentfully, though gently, half turning from him.

"You'll shake hands, won't you?" asked Jack, holding out his own right hand.

"Perhaps, after I have talked with you on shore-when we meet again," she replied, a bit distantly. Then she turned to Williamson as her boat came in close alongside. "Your hand, please. I am afraid I may slip."

Williamson helped that most attractive young woman down over the side, lifting his cap after he had seen her safe aboard the rowboat. As the harbor craft veered off, Captain Jack Benson lifted his cap with all courtesy. Mlle. Sara Nadiboff bowed to him rather coldly.

"I suppose," sighed Jack, to himself, as he turned away, "a woman can't begin to understand why we must be so secret aboard a submarine craft that all the naval men in the world would like to know about. If she only could understand!"

Had Benson been able to guess just how well the handsome young spy did understand, and how much she had hoped to learn through appealing to his interest in her, he would have been furious at the thought of his own great simplicity.

"Your charming partner of last night was rather disappointed," observed

Hal Hastings.

"Yes; she must feel that I have used her mighty shabbily," Jack responded. "I am afraid she won't forgive me."

"Oh, well, after a few days you'll never see her again," murmured Hal. "Just because a girl is pleasant-and pretty-one can't forget all the orders that he's working under."

Captain Jack Benson talked to himself in about the same strain, yet he couldn't wholly get over the notion that he had been-though helplessly-rude to a woman.

"You won't need me on deck any more, will you, sir?" asked Williamson, saluting.

"No; I shall be on deck," Jack replied, returning the salute. "Very likely Mr. Hastings will be here with me, for that matter."

Soon after the machinist had gone below Eph Somers returned to the deck.

"I've been posting that Kimono," Eph explained.

"Kamanako," laughed Captain Jack.

"Oh, it's all the same to me," sighed Eph. "To my untrained ear all

Japanese names sound alike."

"Whatever you do," warned Jack, "don't, hurt the poor fellow's feelings by calling him Kimono."

"Why not?"

"Well, the Japanese are a proud and sensitive race.

"Suppose they are?"

"Do you know what 'Kimono' means, Eph?"

"Haven't even a guilty suspicion."

"It's the Japanese name for a woman's dress."

"Wow!" muttered Somers. "I shall surely have to, forget 'Kimono,' then.

What do you call his truly name?"

"Kamanako," Jack responded, and spelled it. Eph wrote the name down on a slip of paper, saying:

"Thank you, Jack. I'll try to commit this name to memory. I don't want to hurt the feelings of a sensitive little fellow. It would be a shame to have to punch him if he felt insulted and made a pass at me."

"Punch him, eh?" laughed Jack in genuine enjoyment. "Eph! Eph! Don't make any false start like that!"

"What are you talking about?" questioned Somers.

"Don't make the mistake, at any time, Of trying to punch that Japanese."

"Trying to?" gasped Somers. "Say, if I made a swing at that light colored little chocolate drop, do you think I'd make a false pass and hit my own nose?"

"You might be lucky if nothing worse happened," grinned Jack. "Eph, did you never hear of the Japanese jiu-jitsu?"

"What's that?" demanded young Somers. "Slang name for something else in the Jap wardrobe?"

"No; it's the Jap way of fighting," Captain Benson explained. "And you want to remember, Eph, that's it's a mighty sudden system, too. It hits like lightning. When the smoke clears away you see a little Japanese bowing over you, and apologizing for having rudely tipped you over."

"And little Cabbage-Jacko could do that?" Eph grinned, incredulously.

"Say, it's wrong to tell me such funny things when I have a cracked lip."

"All right," sighed Jack. "But at least you've been warned."

Truth to tell, the young submarine commander wasn't much worried about Eph's deliberately provoking any fistic encounter with a fellow much smaller than himself. In the first place, the carroty-haired boy wasn't quarrelsome, unless actually driven into a fight. At all times Somers was too manly to take out wrath on anyone merely up to his own shoulder height.

Nearly an hour later Jack Benson stepped through into the conning tower; then moved down the spiral staircase.

His rubber-soled deck shoes made no noise. Thus it happened that the young submarine commander came upon the new steward most un expectedly, and without being seen by the little, brown man.

"Kamanako-you scoundrel!" shouted the young captain, beside himself with sudden wrath.

For the Japanese, wholly absorbed in his present task, had deftly removed the gauge from the midships submergence apparatus, and was now dissecting the gauge itself, eyeing the parts with the knowing look of an expert.

At sound of the captain's voice Kamanako wheeled calmly about, holding up the gauge. The smile on the face of the Japanese was childlike and bland.

"This very queer thing," he murmured. "What for you use it-thermometer."

"No," retorted Jack Benson, frigidly, eyeing the detected one. "It's a barometer, and it shows which way a meddler blows in!"

"I don't understand," remarked the Japanese, looking perplexed.

"Then I'll help you to understand. First of all, put that gauge down on the table!"

Kamanako did so, then made a little bow.

"Now," continued Jack Benson, "take cap and go up on deck."

"What shall I do there, Captain?" asked Kamanako, politely.

"Well, you'll stand there until I see if you've done anything else on board. If you haven't, you can then take a boat to the shore-and stay there."

"What this mean, honorable Captain?" demanded Kamanako, a look of offense beginning to creep into his little, brown face.

"Well, if you must have it," returned Benson, coldly, "it means that I've found you spying into our mechanisms here. Now, a spy is a creature no one cares to have about-least of all on a warship."

"You call me spy-call me ugly name like that?" cried Kamanako, showing his teeth.

"Get your hat and go up on deck. Do you hear me?" insisted Captain Jack.

"I hear you, but I please myself about when I do it," retorted the

Japanese, drawing himself up to his full though not very imposing height.

"Then you'll go without waiting for your hat," retorted Benson, his patience rapidly oozing now. He started toward the Japanese, just as Eph, hearing the sound of talking, looked in and down the staircase.

"Gunpowder and smoke!" ejaculated the carroty-topped boy. "It's little chocolate drop!"

"Are you going up on deck quietly and in an orderly way?" demanded

Benson, a resolute glitter in his clear, blue eyes.

"I please myself," retorted Kamanako, defiantly.

At that Jack Benson promptly forgot the warning he had given Eph, and sprang at the inquisitive steward.

"You'll go-" began Benson.

He was in error, though. It was he himself who "went." As he reached out with his right hand to seize Kamanako something happened. Exactly what it was the young submarine captain never quite knew. But he found himself sprawling under the seat at the opposite side of the cabin.

"Hi, yi! Wow!" exploded Eph, darting down the stairs. "Save some of that for me!"

It was ready and waiting.

The carroty-topped boy crouched low, resting his hands on his knees, after the manner of a football player awaiting an assault.

Kamanako slid in close. Ere Eph could seize him the Japanese let himself fall lightly on one side. One of his feet hooked itself behind Eph's advanced left ankle, the other foot pressing against the knee of the same leg. Eph's ankle was yanked forward, his knee pressed back, and Somers went toppling as a tree in the forest does.

Kamanako was so quickly on his feet again to suggest that he had fallen and risen in the same movement. There was a quiet, yet dangerous, smile on the face of the Japanese.

The door of the engine room opened swiftly though noiselessly.

Williamson, the machinist, took in the whole scene instantly. Hardly a

full step forward he took when his fist landed between the shoulders of

Kamanako, sending that young Japanese through the air, to land sprawling.

As Kamanako leaped to his feet he found himself blinking at the muzzle of a revolver that the machinist held in his right hand.