“Dad, you have got to let us go,” pleaded big Bob. “Why, as Inspector Burton says, there will be little danger. Besides, we aren’t babies. We have taken care of ourselves pretty capably under trying circumstances this summer, haven’t we? Now, haven’t we?”
He stood above his father as he spoke, having leaped to his feet in his anxiety.
“Yes, you have, Bob,” said his father. He put up his hands before him as if for protection, and bent away in mock terror from his big son. “Don’t strike. I surrender.”
“But, remember,” Mr. Temple warned. “I want you to go on this expedition, bearing the same advice the mother gave her daughter. You may ‘hang your clothes on a hickory limb, but don’t go near the water.’ In other words, if there is any fighting, stay out of it. Unless, of course, you are personally attacked, or your side is hard pressed.”
“And now, boys,” said Inspector Burton, “I have my arrangements to make. So, if you will meet me at the pier—or, better, aboard the Sub Chaser—at seven o’clock tonight, I’ll excuse myself.”
He arose, asking Ensign Warwick to accompany him.
“As for me,” said Mr. Temple, when the two officers had left the room, followed by Inventor Bender, “I’m worn out, and am going to take a nap. You boys have two or three hours of spare time. It would do you all good, in view of your trip tonight, to try to snatch a few hours’ sleep. But I suppose it would be impossible for you to compose yourselves?”
“Couldn’t be done, Dad,” agreed Bob. “We’ll go out and look at the town for an hour or so. We can be back around five-thirty, get a bit of dinner, with you, and then go to the boat.”
It was early twilight when a taxicab deposited Mr. Temple and the chums at the entrance to the pier. At the suggestion of Inspector Burton, the boys had purchased and donned corduroy trousers. Each carried also a heavy sweater to be worn later against the evening chill, for they had been warned that with the going down of the sun the air would become sharp.
“Pass,” said a sailor mounting guard at the big gates which, opened on their arrival, since had been swung across the entrance. “You are expected.”
He was one of the men who had been on deck watch earlier aboard the Sub Chaser, and had been placed there because he would recognize them.