This seemed to be adding insult to injury, and by this time Prime was speechless, Berserk-mad, as he himself would have written it. Nothing but Lucetta's restraining hand upon his arm kept him from hurling himself, reckless of consequences, upon the heartless jester. When he could control his symptoms sufficiently to find a few coherent words, he contrived to ease the soul-nausea—in some small measure.
"There is another day coming, Grider; don't you lose sight of that for a single minute!" he raged. "I'm not saying anything about myself; perhaps I have given you cause to assume that you can pull off your brutal initiation stunts on me whenever you feel like it. That's all right, but you've overdone the thing this time. Miss Millington's quarrel is my quarrel. If I can't get you in any other way, I'll post you in every club you belong to as the man who plays horse-laugh jokes on women!"
"The account between us is too long to wait for daylight!"
At this outburst Grider only laughed again, appearing to be entirely and quite joyously impervious to either scorn or red rage.
"Perhaps I do owe you both an apology—not for the joke—that is too ripping good to be spoiled—but for breaking your night's rest in that peppery Scotchman's birch-bark," he offered. "If you'll duck under the raised deck, you'll find two dog-kennel staterooms. The port-side kennel is yours, Don, and the other is Miss Millington's. Suppose you turn in and get your nap out. To-morrow morning, if you still feel in the humor for it, you can get together and give me what you seem to think is coming to me. Shoo! I can't steer this boat and play skittles with you at the same time. Run along to bed—both of you!"
With such a case-hardened barbarian for a host, there seemed to be nothing else to be done, and Prime took Lucetta's arm and helped her down into the tiny cabin. It was lighted, and the doors of the two box-like staterooms were open. Prime felt for the button on the jamb of the right-hand door and Lucetta's sleeping-niche sprang alight. She looked in and gave a little cry of astonishment.
"My suitcases!" she exclaimed; "the ones I left in the Quebec hotel!"
Prime snapped the opposite switch and looked on his own side. "My auto trunk, too," he conceded sourly. "We didn't need any more evidence, but this is conclusive. Grider has had his horse-laugh, and the least he could do in the wind-up was to bring us our belongings. I suppose we are compelled to be indebted to him for getting us out of the scrape with Macdougal, much as it goes against the grain; but to-morrow we'll settle with him."
Lucetta braced herself in her doorway against the surge and swing of the racing cruiser.