midday
`` Then I 'll run over to Mr. Partridge , the superintendent of the yard , and he 'll have a foreman and a gang attend to it , '' suggested the young submarine skipper . Accordingly , this was done . Then the party slated for the afternoon cruise went over to the hotel . By the time that they came back from the midday meal the two service torpedoes were aboard the `` Hastings '' and the target was in readiness to be towed out to sea . This `` target '' was not a handsome-looking affair . It was an old scow , some thirty feet long and broad of beam , that had once been used , up the coast , in sea-wall construction work . Mr. Farnum had bought it a short time before and it now lay at anchor , near the beach , ready to be towed out to sea for its last service to mankind .