“It strikes me,” mused Tom, sitting on the lower berth, and turning toward his indignant chum, “that we’re having all sorts of thrills aboard this steamer long before we get to the danger zone and the waiting subs.”
“A little bit too much excitement to please me. The trouble is it’s all on one side. So far we haven’t been able to get a single whack at those clever scamps.”
Tom was taking it very much in the light of a joke. He at least was not worrying himself because the plotters had met with such a bitter disappointment when they may have anticipated great things to come of this secret search.
“Do you think they’ll be ready to give it up as a bad job, now that they’ve looked your trunk over, and failed to find anything?” Jack went on to ask.
“That’s hard to say. They may take a notion to scatter your trunk around for a change.”
“But why should they do that?” demanded Jack.
“On general principles, and because, don’t you see, I might have been shrewd enough to hand the paper over for you to hide away in your trunk. Then again, if they had the nerve and could manage it, they might try to chloroform us some fine night as we slept, and search our clothes, even ripping open the fleece linings of our leather aviation coats in the hope of finding something worth while.”
Of course Tom spoke half in a joking mood, but his chum took it all seriously enough. Unaccustomed to dealing with clever rogues, Jack was beginning to imagine all manner of terrible possibilities as hanging over the heads of his companion and himself.
“Say, we really ought to complain to the captain, and have this thing stopped,” he burst out. “If he knew what was going on aboard his old boat he’d gladly put a man on duty day and night to watch our stateroom.”
“But we ought to be able to look out for ourselves, it strikes me, Jack. Since we have no paper to be taken away from us, why should we worry? They’ll give it up as a bad job presently. Besides, we’re only two nights and a day out from port now, and there’ll be plenty to engage our attention from now on, without borrowing trouble.”