“He had fallen under the table, maestro!”
“Besides, how did we know where he lived?”
“But what then?” asked Curry, his face crowded more than ever with a real desperation of concern.
“Tony,” muttered Alfredo weakly, “how was it after that?”
“Wait a minute!” commanded Tony solemnly. “Maestro, we thought it would be best to bring him aboard for the night!”
“Yes, yes!” the other brightened. “How it all comes back to me! A few hours sleep on the schooner, and then....”
From the vicinity of the comedian something strangely like an incipient chuckle was detected.
“Well, maestro,” faltered Tony ruefully, scarcely daring to look at the victim at all, “after that—after that....”
But it was all too plain at length. “For you see,” as Alfredo appended in his dire extremity, “we were in so much the same fix ourselves!”
They stood aghast at what they had done. Everybody stood aghast. There seemed something almost cataclysmic about Jerome’s being here in their midst instead of back in San Francisco where he belonged.