“Oh, just this much, sir,” retorted Eph, treading water, lazily; “I belong aboard the ‘Benson,’ and I’ve been sent to inquire where you want us to find our moorings.”

“You from the ’Benson’?” snorted the lieutenant, incredulously.  “Then where is your craft!”

“Coming, sir.”

“Coming?” jeered the lieutenant “So is Christmas!”

“The ‘Benson’ will be here first, sir,” retorted Eph, splashing, then blowing a stream of water from his mouth.  “The ‘Benson,’ sir, is due here in from twenty to thirty seconds!”

“What’s that?” demanded the naval officer, sharply.  Then a queer look came into his face as a suspicion of the truth flashed into his mind.  He was about to speak when his feminine companion pointed, crying: 

“What can that commotion mean out there?” There was a little flurry in the waters, then a parting as something dull-colored loomed slowly up.

Barely a hundred feet away from the port rail of the gunboat the new submarine boat, “Benson,” rose into sight.

Eph Somers had left the craft, while still below surface, by means of the clever trick worked out by Jack Benson and his comrades, as described in “The Submarine Boys’ Trial Trip.”

Almost instantly the manhole cover was thrown open.  Jack Benson, natty as a tailor’s model, in his newest uniform, stepped out on deck, waving his hand to the gunboat.

“You’ll have to consider that we got you, won’t you, sir?” shouted the young submarine captain.

Then, both on shore and on the decks of many craft, a realization of what had happened dawned in the minds of thousands of people at about the same instant.  A great, combined cheer shot up—­a cheer that was a vocal cyclone!

CHAPTER II

TROUBLE IN THE MAKING STAGE

On the hurricane deck of the “Waverly” stood one man, mouth wide open and eyes a-stare, who couldn’t seem to get the meaning of it all.  That man was the leader of the combined band from the winter hotels.

Turning, glancing upward, the lieutenant looked at the leader with a glance of cool wonder.

“Play, man!  Why don’t you play?  What are you there for?”

Then, all of a sudden, reddening, the band leader rapped his music stand with his baton, next gave the signal, and the band crashed forth into the exultant strains of: 

“See!  The Conquering Hero comes!”

At the third measure the band was all but drowned out by renewed cheering, that came more uproariously than ever.

Captain Jack Benson had surely chosen a dramatic manner of making his appearance at Spruce Beach.  Ten thousand tongues were set wagging all at once.  When there came a lull, a man’s voice on a tug not far from the gunboat could be heard, asserting loudly: 

“Well, that’s what submarines are for—­to sneak in while you’re wiping a speck of dust from your eye!”