CHAPTER II
A RACE AND ITS ENDING
Dorothy’s search for the missing old man and, to her, the more important missing purses brought her to the lower deck and Molly. The latter was still leaning upon the rail, gazing a little sadly into the water, for the brief glimpse she had had of her cousin Tom had recalled their happy days in their old southern home. There were even a few tears in her bright blue eyes as she raised them toward her friend; but she checked them at once, frightened by the expression of Dorothy’s own.
“Why, honey, what’s the matter?”
“Our pocket-books are lost!”
“Lost? Lost! They can’t be. You mustn’t say so. We can’t, we daren’t lose them. Weren’t they on that bench beside the old man?” demanded Molly.
“No, they were not. They were not anywhere—any single where. He wasn’t either.”
“Pooh! He must be. He probably wanted to change his seat and was afraid to leave them lying on the bench, lest somebody might be tempted to pick them up. Somebody to whom they didn’t belong, I mean.”
“Molly, what shall we do? What will Miss Greatorex say?”
“Humph. She’ll probably scream out her disgust as if we were deaf too like herself. That’s the way she always does: when there’s something to be said you don’t want anybody else to hear she just talks her loudest; and when there’s something you’re longing to know she merely whispers. That’s the way all deaf people do, Miss Penelope says. And—you’re the one that lost them, so you’ll be the one to tell her, Dorothy girl.”