“Humph!  Well, my lad, you leave the matter with me, and I will report.  You can look over the yards if you like.”

Venning spent the rest of the morning among the wicked-looking sharks of the Navy, and he went back depressed with the thought that his “sneak-box” was merely a plaything.  However, he picked up confidence when the next day brought an offer from the builders to turn out an aluminium sneak-box in three divisions, with capacity for a crew of six, to be worked on occasion by two men pulling at levers, driving the propeller by means of endless chains and cog-wheels, the gear to be made of best oil-tempered nickel-steel, with hardened ball bearings.  Each division, when detached, of such weight that it could be easily carried by three men, but no guarantee given that the propeller would give the speed desired.

“That is good enough for us, I think,” said Mr. Hume.

“They give no guarantee,” remarked Compton, cautiously.

“No; but they would not undertake the work unless they had some belief in the idea, and if the propeller proves useless, we can at the worst unship it.  In any case we must have the boat, and we could not improve on the makers.”

The order was given, and by the fourth week the little boat was launched on the Thames for its first trial.  It looked workmanlike in spite of its wide beam and shallow draught, for the great designer who had fashioned the lines of the fastest destroyer afloat had himself drawn up the plans after giving a day’s careful thought to the job.  The shaft, which rested on nickel-steel sockets, with ball bearings supported by nickel-steel ribs for lightness, was protected by a water-tight casing, and all the other parts made of the very best metal, so as to secure both lightness and strength, with a complicated set of cog-wheels to take off the strain.  The steering was by a neat wheel right forward, where the look-out man could have an uninterrupted view.  Forward, too, was the socket for the metal mast.  The boat was fifteen feet in length, with a beam of four feet amidships, tapering fore and aft, with a well in the centre, and the remaining space covered in with a light aluminium deck, strengthened by oak bends.  There was sleeping-room for two, so that with a crew of four there would have to be four watches of three hours each.  The peculiar features of the long, low craft were the two levers rising above the after-deck through slots, which gave each a thrust of about one and a half feet, and two saddle-like seats borne on stout supports, one near the stem facing the bows, and the other further forward facing the stem.  Venning perched himself on one seat, Compton on the other, one of the hands took the wheel, and Mr. Hume and the designer sat in the well.

Compton’s clear-cut face, with well-formed jaws, showed no other sign of interest than a rather amused smile, but Venning’s fair features were flushed with excitement and nervous expectation, A man pushed the boat out.  It moved at first sluggishly.