orders. You can 'phone him between three and three-thirty to-day. Mustn't bother him at any other time."
"That's right, is it?" demanded Halstead, looking half-suspiciously at Davis.
"Quite right," nodded the latter youth, gravely. Dick was older than the others, being nineteen, as against a general average of sixteen years for the other boys. Dick was different in another respect. While the other five boys followed motor boating as a means of livelihood, depending upon their earnings, young Davis, the son of a ship-builder of Bath, Maine, was at all times well supplied with money. Dick's outline for the future included a possible college course, and then breaking into the ship-building business with his father. It was not yet quite decided whether young Davis should omit the college part of the plan. In the meantime, the elder Davis believed that an active membership in the Motor Boat Club would be the best possible training to fit his son for a position in the ship-yard.
"Well, if those are the instructions, then," replied Captain Tom, returning to his chair, "we'll wait until a few minutes after three."
"And now it's half-past eleven," said Jed, consulting his watch. "Luncheon will not be served until one. We can wait here as well as anywhere. Say, fellows, I'm just crazy to hear some good old yarns of what you others have been through."
With that, yarn-spinning became the order of the day. The young men were still at it when they went down to the gorgeous dining room of the Palace Hotel. The air about their table was thick with yarns all through the meal.
While they sat around the table, absorbed in one another's stories, a dark-visaged, well-dressed man of thirty started to enter the dining room. Just at the threshold, however, he paused, for his glance had alighted on a profile view of Captain Tom Halstead at one of the tables in the center of the dining room.
"That's the cub who struck me this morning," muttered the dark-faced one, drawing back. "I want to know who he is. I want to place him – I want to meet him and settle the account for that blow and the disappointment it brought about!"
Tom Halstead turned around, a moment later, but he did not see the man he had knocked from the train that morning at the Sixteenth Street station in Oakland. That worthy had drawn quickly back out of sight, and was now looking about for some hotel employé to question.
Ten minutes later he of the dark visage had all the information he felt he needed.
"Tom Halstead? So that's your name?" snarled the stranger, as he started for the street entrance. "And you're employed by Baldwin – could anything be more favorable to our meeting again, eh?" The stranger smiled darkly, meaningly, as he pronounced the name of Baldwin.
Luncheon over, the yarning motor boat boys embarked in the elevator. This time they went direct to the room assigned to Tom and Joe. The trunks of these two young men had arrived, and now rested in the room.
Once more the yarning went on, until Captain Tom checked it at exactly two minutes past three o'clock.
CHAPTER III
CAPTAIN TOM'S NEW COMMAND
"It's time for Mr. Baldwin to hear from us, now," announced the young skipper, rising and crossing to the room-telephone. He gave the number, waiting briefly.
"Hello," sounded a voice in the receiver.
"Hello," returned Tom, quietly. "Is this Mr. Baldwin?"
"No; wait a moment. I'll connect you."
"Hello," came, an instant later.
"Hello. Mr. Baldwin?"
"Yes."
"I am Captain Tom Halstead, here at the Palace Hotel, awaiting your orders."
"Is Dabson with you?"
"Dawson, sir," Tom corrected. "Yes; Dawson is with me."
"Then your whole crew is on hand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good! Well, as the finishers are about through with their repair work on my boat we shall be ready to get you aboard without delay."
"May I ask, sir, how big a boat – "
"Captain, be at my office, all of you in uniform, at four o'clock exactly."
"Very good, sir. Four o'clock."
"Captain Halstead, punctuality is one of my failings," warned Joseph Baldwin's voice.
"It's one of my studies, Mr. Baldwin."
"Then, at four o'clock?"
"Four o'clock, sharp, sir!"
"Good-bye."
Ting-ling-ling! Tom hung up the receiver.
"Well," came an eager chorus. "What are we going to do?"
"We're going to get into our club sailing uniforms," smiled Captain Tom, "and we're to be at Mr. Baldwin's office at four o'clock to the minute."
"What sort of a boat – "
"Cruising or racing – "
"Coasting or sea-voy – "
"You'll all of you have to cut out the questions," laughed Tom Halstead. "I've told you every blessed thing I've just learned over the 'phone. Fellows, I think our Mr. Baldwin is stingy – "
"Stingy?" broke in Ab Perkins, with fine scorn. "And paying every one of us first-class salaries!"
"Stingy of words," finished Captain Tom, calmly. "If our new employer keeps on as he has begun, we won't know anything he means to do until the time comes to do it. Then he'll give his complete orders in from six to eight words. That's the way it looks. Now, for your uniforms. Come along, Joe, and we'll get into ours. Mr. Baldwin, I omitted to tell you, did inform me – "
Captain Tom paused, looking mysterious.
"Told you what?" chorused Dick, Ab and Jed, eagerly.
"That he's extremely partial to people who are punctual to the minute," finished Tom Halstead, making a sign that brought Joe along in his trail.
Sailors are accustomed to quick dressing, as they are to quick work of all sorts. Hence the six motor boat boys, all looking decidedly neat and important in their uniforms and visored caps, were soon on their way to the elevator shaft. Soon afterwards they stepped from the Palace entrance to the street, making for the other side of Market Street at the first crossing.
More than one swift pedestrian paused long enough to send a look back after these six trim, almost martial-looking young men, who walked in pairs and carried themselves like graduates of the Naval Academy.
It was just five minutes before four o'clock when the sextette halted outside the Chronicle Building.
"A couple of minutes to breathe," announced Halstead, watch in hand. Presently, he marched them into the corridor. Here, after a short wait, they stepped into one of the several elevators, leaving it a few floors from the street.
"Sixty seconds yet to spare," whispered Captain Tom, smilingly, holding up his watch.
Precisely at the dot of four o'clock the six
