"I'm off for the day, Johnson," he announced. "Is the transportation at the door?"
"Yes, sir. I just looked out of the window. Your transportation is ready."
"Come along, Captain Halstead and gentlemen," directed Mr. Baldwin.
Though he led them swiftly, another clerk had slipped out ahead of them, and now stood by the elevator shaft. A car was just stopping at the floor. Down the party whizzed. Mr. Baldwin led the boys to a street door, outside of which two automobile touring cars stood.
"Captain, I want you and Dawson in the car with me. Let your friends follow in the other."
Two tonneau doors closed with bangs. Off whizzed the cars. Speed laws did not appear to be made for the concern of a man like Joseph Baldwin. It seemed as though the cars had barely started when they ran out onto a dock not much to the westward of the ferry houses.
A man in plain blue uniform and visored cap, wearing the insignia of a quartermaster, stood at the far end of the dock. He saluted as soon as he espied Joseph Baldwin hastening toward him.
By this time Mr. Baldwin was going down a short flight of steps to a landing stage. There lay moored a trim-looking sixteen-foot power tender.
"Fall aboard," briefly directed Mr. Baldwin, and the motor boat boys, rather enjoying this systematized bustle, obeyed.
Bickson, without waiting for orders, cast off, started the motor and sent the boat gliding out into the stream.
"Quite a motor yacht that carries a quartermaster," observed Captain Halstead, with a smile.
"I carry three," rejoined Mr. Baldwin, thrusting a cigar into his mouth and lighting it with a "blazer" match.
In and out among the shipping the tender glided. Then, at last, Captain Tom caught sight of a graceful craft some hundred and twenty feet long. She looked like a miniature liner.
"I wonder if I'll ever command a handsome craft like that?" thought the young motor boat skipper, with a brief pang of envy. "Jove! what a boat!"
The next thing the motor boat boys knew they were running up alongside this hundred-and-twenty-footer. A young man of twenty-five or twenty-six, whose uniform proclaimed him to be a watch officer, stood at the top of a side gangway.
"This can't be the boat--such a beauty!" gasped Tom Halstead, inwardly. Joe Dawson's eyes were full of wonder. Ab Perkins's lower jaw was hanging down in proof of his bewilderment. Dick Davis's face was flushing. Jed was staring. Only Jeff Randolph appeared indifferent.