“Darned if I kin make aout partner, haow he ever got wise to the fack, so’s to call me Mister Corkendall.”
“Go on, brother—what did you do then?” demanded Jack.
“Huh! I was a bit flustered, yeou see,” explained Perk, “’cause I’d got a side squint at his mug; I reckoned I needed ’bout half a minute to git a grip on my senses; so I tilted up my glass, an’ swallered a few times; and say it ’peared to me like a thousand things flashed through my poor ole brain like a stroke o’ lightnin’.”
“Did you answer him?” demanded Jack, frowning.
“I sure did,” came unhesitating the reply; “’case I jest had to. Yeou see, partner, he’d been astandin’ thar right along, an’ in course he done heard me order my drink; so if I tried to play that dumb trick, as haow yeou tole me, he’d aknown things must a been a bit mixed, an’ the fat’d be in the fire. Did I do the right thing Boss, tell me?”
Jack smiled amiably again.
“That was certainly one time your mother wit didn’t fail you, comrade,” he told the other. “Now, go ahead and let me know what followed; because I’ve already guessed the man at your elbow must have been that Smart Aleck newspaper reporter we last saw looking over our ship so suspiciously.”
| [2] | See “Trackers of the Fog Pack.” |