"I wonder what Benson is doing here?" murmured Farley. "Lieutenant Benson," Dave corrected him, "is probably here on official business. If you want exact details, suppose we stop at the superintendent's house and ask him." "Quit your kidding," grinned Farley. "So I've got to say 'sir,' if that boy speaks to me?" asked Dan. "I think it would be better," smiled Darrin, "if you're anxious to escape another handful of demerits." By the time that the football squad began to assemble on the football field, Dan and his friends found that some of the midshipmen were full of information about the famous Submarine Boys. Readers who may not be familiar with the careers of Lieutenant Jack Benson, Ensign Hal Hastings, and Ensign Eph Somers are referred to the volumes of the _Submarine Boys' Series_. In _"The Submarine Boys and the Middies"_ will be found the account of the hazing that Jack, Hal and Eph had received at the hands of midshipmen. Benson and his two friends, with a crew of four men, were now at the Naval Academy, having arrived at two o'clock that afternoon, for the purpose of giving the first classmen instruction aboard the latest Pollard submarine, the "Dodger." But play was called, and that stopped, for the time being, all talk about the Submarine Boys. CHAPTER VIII THE PRIZE TRIP ON THE "DODGER" The following afternoon, at the hour for instruction in the machine shops, the entire first class was marched down to the basin, where the "Dodger" lay. Squad by squad the midshipmen were taken on board the odd-looking little craft that was more at home beneath the waves than on them. While the exact place and scale of importance of submarine war craft has not been determined as yet, boats of the Pollard type are certainly destined to play a tremendously important part in the Naval wars of the future. Hence all of the midshipmen were deeply interested in what they saw and were told. Some of these first classmen were twenty-four years of age, others from twenty to twenty-two. Hence, with many of them, there was some slight undercurrent of feeling over the necessity for taking instruction from such very youthful instructors as Jack Benson, Hal Hastings and Eph Somers. Had any of this latter trio been inclined to put on airs there might have been some disagreeable feeling engendered in the breasts of some of the middies. But Jack and his associates were wholly modest, pleasant and helpful. Beginning on the following day, it was announced, the "Dodger" would take a squad of six midshipmen down Chesapeake Bay for practical instruction in submarine work, both above and below the surface of the water. This instruction would continue daily, with squads of six midshipmen on board, until all members of the first class had received thorough drilling. "That's going to be a mighty pleasant change from the usual routine here," whispered Farley in Dave's ear. "It surely will," Darrin nodded. "It will be even better fun than football."