But in the short time before our departure, Smith asked Washington to authorize the engaging of the professor as a field clerk, when Smith had brought the urgency of the matter to the attention of a public-spirited citizen of San Francisco, who put to the professor’s credit in a local bank some two thousand dollars to insure him an adequate income in addition to the pay as field clerk. So the professor went with us. As the sailing date approached, and we had finished buying clothing and equipment suitable for a polar expedition, Smith became more secretive than ever. The night of the first of September he called a last conference, in which he issued envelopes containing tags for our heavy baggage. “Gentlemen,” he announced, looking at us over his glasses in his room, strewn with Red Cross gifts for us, “the name of our transport is the _Sheridan_. In these envelopes are the tags, with the name of the ship. The envelopes serve to conceal the name of the transport, and will not be removed from the tags till the baggage is inside the enclosure of the transport dock. You will not disclose to any person the name of the transport. And I have ordered taxicabs to be at the hotel at nine in the morning. All officers will appear on the hotel veranda at that hour, with their hand baggage, and ready to get into the taxicabs. The drivers have been told that they are to take us to the ferry building, but at the last minute I will tell them that we are to go to the transport dock. I have assigned the officers in pairs to each cab, and as I call the number of the cab, the officers assigned to it, will enter it, and then wait for the order to move out. Is that satisfactory?” Trying to keep our faces straight, we decided we were suited. Then the wag in the party asked if we were to keep secret from the hotel management the fact that we were departing. “Most certainly,” said Smith, swallowing bait, line and sinker. “Then I suggest,” said the wag, “that we do not pay our hotel bills. That would be the proper procedure, to keep it all dark and secret.” “Don’t be absurd,” said Smith. “Of course we will pay our bills in the morning at the last minute.” “I think,” said the wag, “that after all, the clerk looks like a loyal American citizen, and can be trusted. And as the _Sheridan_ is at the dock, in plain sight of the hotel and such of San Francisco as cares to go and look at it, we will have to take the chance that the day after it sails, it will not be missed--or folks will think it has gone up to Mare Island Navy Yard to be painted or something. That, however, is one of the hazards of war--we must risk the deductions of the local amateur sleuths and spies of the Kaiser.” “Don’t be silly,” said Smith, and handed him the sealed envelopes for baggage, with the tag-string sticking out a slit in the end.