“That’s that devil Phillips,” said Barnes, with a certain gloomy satisfaction. “I told you you were making a fool of yourself, Barrows. He’s been too clever for you.”
Svenson, who had been drinking as fast as his glass could be replenished, was in a furious rage.
“What about my boat?” he cried furiously. “It will cost a thousand dollars to make her seaworthy again. And there’s no insurance.”
“Never mind your boat,” said Barrows. “We’ll clean up enough to fix her up, and we’ll divide the cost equally.”
“Clean up nothing,” said Barnes sarcastically. “You’re skunked, Barrows. Your scheme is knocked into a cocked hat. Don’t you know enough to know when you’re beaten?”
“Beaten?” cried Barrows. “I guess not. We didn’t need the Marina to put that through. We’ll be all right, I tell you. The plan goes through without any change at all. Everything will work all right. There’s no way they can have got on to us. It’s a bad thing that Phillips, if he was the one, got away, and worse that he sank the Marina, if he did. And I suppose he must have. But there’s no reason why we should curl up and quit like a lot of whipped curs.”
“Have it your own way,” said Barnes, with a sneer. “All I know is that old Bill Harding expected something of this very sort to happen. He’s a wise guy, Bill. He’s well out of this, and he saw that early in the game.”
“Do you seriously think there’s a chance to put it through still?” asked the trembling Dennison, who had joined them in the saloon. “I thought it was all up when I heard you had lost the Marina.”
“Why should it be?” asked Barrows, with a curse. “We’ve still got the motor boats, haven’t we? I’ll take one of them, Svenson another, and Bascom, the wireless man, the third. Bascom’s all right. He’s down, watching the boats now. I guess we can make that race come out just about as we want, even now.”
“Who wants to quit?” snarled Svenson. “I’ve got to put this through now, or I’ll never get the money for my boat. I don’t suppose any of you cheap skates are going to make that up to me unless I do it for myself. And you’ve forgotten the other thing, too, Barrows.”