The others now sat back, out of courtesy, looking on and chatting while Ensign Eph Somers ate his meal. "There may be a few questions---or many---that you would like to ask," suggested Lieutenant Jack Benson. "If so, gentlemen, go ahead with your questions. For that matter, during your stay aboard, ask all the questions you can think of." "Thank you, sir," replied Midshipman Dave Darrin, with a slight bow. "I have been thinking of one point on which I would be glad of information." "And that is-----" "The full complement of this craft appears to consist of three officers and four enlisted men---that is, of course, outside of your combined cook and steward." "Yes," nodded Benson. "One of the officers is commanding officer; another is deck officer and the third engineer officer." "Yes." "Then, on a cruise," pursued Dave, "how can you divide watches and thus keep going night and day?" "Why, originally," Jack replied, "we put on long cruises with only three aboard---the three who are at present officers. With a boat like the 'Dodger,' which carries so few men, the commanding officer cannot stand on his dignity and refuse to stand watch. I frequently take my trick at the wheel. That gives Mr. Somers his chance to go below and sleep." "Yet Mr. Hastings is your only engineer officer." "True, but two of our enlisted men are trained as engine-tenders. Our engines are rather simple, in the main, and an enlisted engine-tender can run our engine room for hours at a stretch under ordinary conditions. Of course, if anything out of the usual should happen while Mr. Hastings were taking his trick in his berth, he would have to be wakened. But we can often make as long a trip as from New York to Havana without needing to call Mr. Hastings once from his berth during his hours of rest." "Then you have two enlisted men aboard who thoroughly understand your engines?" pressed Dave Darrin. "Ordinarily," replied Hal Hastings, here breaking in. "But one of our engine-tenders reached the end of his enlisted period to-day, and, as he wouldn't re-enlist, we had to let him go. So the new enlisted man whom we took aboard is just starting in to learn his duties." "Small loss in Morton," laughed Lieutenant Jack Benson. "He was enough of a natural genius around machinery, but he was a man of sulky and often violent temper. Really, I am glad that Morton took his discharge to-day. I never felt wholly safe while we had him aboard." "He was a bad one," Ensign Hal Hastings nodded. "Morton might have done something to sink us, only that he couldn't do so without throwing away his own life." "I don't know, sir, what I'd do, if I were a commanding officer and found that I had such a man in the crew," replied Midshipman Darrin.