Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/176

 discourse. They became very well acquainted that afternoon, and by supper time Nelson, for his part, felt as if the acquaintance was of years' standing. Possibly there is something in being in a watertight cylinder a hundred or more feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean that expedites friendship! At all events, the two boys got along fast, and Nelson, who had never had a real chum of anywhere near his own age, was quite breathlessly happy. The afternoon flew by and it was "grub time" again. Nelson's appetite was fifty per cent better than at noon. They had "submarine turkey" for supper, a viand better known to Nelson as canned salmon, and bread and butter and apple-sauce—also canned—and enough coffee to float the boat. The big coffee urn was always simmering and always on tap, and the amount of the beverage that was consumed during twenty-four hours aboard the Q-4 was awe-inspiring. Some of the men seldom passed the galley that they didn't stop and pour a cupful of it down their throats. And, or so Nelson thought, it wasn't awfully good coffee at that!

By six bells the air in the submarine had become rather foul, and one noticed it by an increased drowsiness and an irritated condition of eyes and throat. In the quarters they began to 151