To be perfectly truthful, there was not so much as a single hair on Alec's chin or lip, any more than there was on Mr. Midshipman Hamshaw's. And the gravity of his guest, his candour, and those twinkling eyes quite made up to Alec for any soreness he may have felt at this somewhat personal declaration. He flushed a rosy red, and then burst into loud laughter. "Oh well, perhaps I imagined it a bit," he said. "If I stick to the razor things'll come along in time. There, into the tub. I'll be along in a jiffy." Ten minutes later, in fact, they were dressed and ready to leave the cabin, Dick having found his own clothes dried, brushed, and neatly folded beside his bed. "I say," he began, "how do you come to be aboard? Tell me." "Cousin of Joe's: going to be an engineer one of these days. Accepted his invitation in a jiffy. Come on. Breakfast'll be ready in half an hour, so we've time to make a round of the ship. Now, up we go to the top deck of all; it'll give you a good impression of the vessel." [Illustration: ARRIVED WITH A BUMP FACING COMMANDER JACKSON _Page 85_] They stepped into that strange lift again and were whisked on high. A minute later they were in the open, with a brisk breeze blowing about them and the genial rays of the sun pouring down upon them. Gazing in every direction Dick found himself stepping upon a flat deck of transparent material, immediately beneath which he could easily see the beams that supported it. Down lower still, beneath a deep space, which common sense told him must be filled with gas, were more beams, curving neatly to complete the shape of this ship, and beneath them again, stretching on either side of a central gallery a number of cabins, some with transparent roofs, others with opaque material let into the ceilings. And yet deeper, forming the lowest portion of the ship, was one long compartment, through the roof of which he could see engines, with a couple of men attending to them. "Let's get along aft, then we'll make forward," said Alec, showing the various parts of the ship with pride. "I'll tell you something about her. She's longer than the latest Zeppelin, and equally deep from top to bottom. You can see that her shape is flattened from above downward, which makes her very much wider than a Zeppelin. Care to come out to one of the side keels?" Dick hesitated. Then catching sight of a rail passing from this main deck down the easily-sloping side of the vessel he nodded. After all, he wasn't going to be beaten by Alec. "Right," he said. "Get ahead." They clambered over the main rail to find themselves on a narrow way provided with very shallow steps. This brought them after a minute right out to the farthest lateral edge of the ship, to that lateral keel, in fact, which Joe Gresson had made such a point of. And there the rail ended abruptly. Alec leaned over it and invited Dick to join him.