“Oh, that isn’t so queer after all,” chuckled Tom. “There are plenty aboard this boat who are afflicted with sudden losses of memory. I’ve had men talking to me lose the connection of what they were saying; and when I looked up it was to find them shading their eyes with a hand and staring hard ahead over the bows of the steamer, as if they felt a horrible suspicion that there was something like a stick standing up out of the water.”
“And then there’s that man who she says is her legally-appointed guardian,” continued Jack, shaking his head in bewilderment. “I confess I don’t like him a little bit!”
“But you haven’t even spoken with him, you told me yesterday,” ventured Tom.
“That’s true enough,” the other admitted. “But I’ve watched him when he thought I was dozing in my chair, and, Tom, he’s keeping a precious close eye on you, I want to say.”
“And why on me?” demanded Tom, looking surprised and interested. “Until this morning, when Bessie came up to me while I was looking over the rail and started to talk about our going across to France, I hadn’t really exchanged a dozen sentences with the girl. Huh! if anybody should be watched I rather think his name might be Jack Parmly!”
“I don’t know why he should seem so much interested in you,” continued the other, “but it’s a fact. Why, Tom, I chanced to see him speak to the girl just before she joined you this morning, and I give you my word it struck me the man was scolding Bessie, as if she had refused to do something he wanted of her. And then, with a look on her face that was close to reluctance, she walked over to where you stood, and spoke to you.”
“Do you mean to say you believe Mr. Potzfeldt seemed to force his ward to enter into conversation with me, and perhaps get me to talking about our mission in France?” he exclaimed.
“Please don’t speak quite so loud, Tom,” urged his chum. “I give you my word that’s just the way it did strike me. Queer, wasn’t it, now? Why under the sun should he want her to cultivate your acquaintance particularly?”
“Who is this guardian of Bessie Gleason?” asked Tom. “His name is a German one, but one gentleman I talked with assured me he was a naturalized American and carried his papers around with him, so that he might not be de-barred from landing in England.”
“Yes,” added Jack, anxious to add his mite to the slender mass of information they had been able to accumulate, “and another man told me Carl Potzfeldt fairly bubbles over with enthusiasm for the glorious Stars and Stripes. He says he looks on Germany as a nation gone mad, and agrees that sooner or later Uncle Sam will have to shy his hat into the ring to help hog-tie the wild beast.”