"It will be like those fellows to say that we were the cause of
Merritt's going overboard. They did not pass us at any rate."
"Let them talk," laughed Jack. "Talk costs nothing, and won't hurt us."
The boys went to the office of the News where Jack gave the editor a few little items, writing them out on the typewriter, Percival looking on in great admiration, although he had seen Jack write before.
"One would think you had been born at a typewriter, Jack," he said. "Now I could not do that. The very noise of the thing would bother me and then, having that bell ring every few seconds would get on my nerves."
"Don't listen to it, Dick. You don't mind the chug of an auto or of a motor-boat, do you? This is not nearly as bad."
"Well, no, I suppose not, but I don't see how you can think with that thing making such a clatter. It would drive all the thoughts out of my head in a minute. None too many there, to start with!"
Leaving the office at length they came upon Herring on the main street, his late companion not being with him.
"You fouled us!" growled the bully. "I'd have passed you in another second. You'll have to pay for Erne's clothes and his doctor's bills, too. He's taken an awful cold. It'll cost you something, let me tell you."
Just then Merritt himself, in a ready made suit of clothes came out of a hotel on the corner, the boys seeing him before he saw them or Herring got sight of him.
"He does not seem to have suffered any," said Percival in a whisper.