“Why, child, I don’t see how I lost them any more than you did! I’m sorry as I can be. Sorrier about yours than mine even, though I’d planned so many nice things to do with the money. Five dollars! Think of it! I never before had five whole dollars at a time, never in my life!” said Dolly, mournfully.
“Well, what’s the use staying down here and just worrying about the thing? Let’s go and look again for the man. When we find the man we shall find the purses; but—whether he’ll give them back to us is another matter.”
“Molly, what a dreadful thing to say! As if you thought he—he stole them, a nice old gentleman like that!”
“Pooh! Once my Aunt Lucretia had her little handbag snatched out of her hand, right on Broadway street in New York city. She did so; and all she could remember about the snatcher was that he was a handsome young man with an eyeglass in one eye. A regular dandy he was, if the thief was the fellow who brushed against her so rudely. Anyhow, after he’d brushed, her bag was gone and all her shopping money in it. Papa told her it served her right. That to carry a purse, or a bag, that way was a temptation to any rogue who happened to pass by. He said the snatcher was smarter than Auntie and he hoped it would teach her a lesson. Aunt Lu thought Papa was almost as horrid as the thief; and what will either of them say to us for being so careless?”
“I suppose we’ll have to tell them!” reflected Dorothy, in sad perplexity.
“Course we will. Aren’t they both to meet us at the steamer? Aren’t they going with us all the way to Halifax? Why, I should want to tell the very first thing. How else would I get any more money?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure. Lucky you! As for me there’s nobody to replace my five dollars, so far as I know.”
“Oh! come on. Don’t let’s stand moping. I’ll tell you. Let’s begin right here at this spot. You go one side this lower place, all along that passage beside the engine-rooms and things and I’ll go the other. Then if we don’t see him anywhere here we’ll meet at the foot of the stairs and search the upper floor just the same way. Out on both ends of the boat, poke into closets and barber-shop and captain’s office—everywhere there is a chance a man, a passenger man, might be.”
It seemed a fine scheme and they promptly separated to put it into execution. But when they met at the foot of the stairway, leading to the upper saloon, neither had any success to report. Nor did they meet with any better fortune when they had made a prolonged examination of the whole steamer, even climbing to the hurricane deck and questioning the officer upon the bridge.
As they slowly descended to the place where Miss Greatorex awaited them, alarmed by their absence and equally afraid to move from the spot lest somebody else should confiscate their three comfortable camp-chairs and, possibly, their hand luggage, Dorothy suggested: