Tom, watching the owner’s face, felt that that gentleman had first looked somewhat alarmed, then much more annoyed.
“There’s something that doesn’t please him and I shouldn’t think it would,” the young captain reflected. “Yet, whatever it is he doesn’t intend to tell me, just yet, at all events. I hope it’s nothing in the way of big mischief that threatens.”
“Of course I’d suggest, sir,” Tom observed finally, “that Dawson and myself sleep aboard nights.”
“You may as well,” nodded the owner, and again Tom thought he saw a shadow of worriment in the other’s eyes.
“Are you going to let Bouncer stay aboard, too, sir?” Tom asked.
“Ordinarily I think I’ll let the dog sleep at the house nights,” replied Mr. Dunstan, immediately after looking as though he were trying to dismiss some matter from his mind.
Joe, too, had been keen enough to scent the fact that, though Mr. Dunstan tried to appear wholly at his ease, yet something was giving that gentleman a good deal of cause for thought. Mr. Dunstan even went aft, presently, seating himself in one of the armchairs and smoking two cigars in succession rather rapidly.
“We’ve put something into his mind that doesn’t lie there easily,” hinted Joe.
“But, of course, it’s none of our business unless he chooses to tell us,” replied Halstead.
A little later Joe Dawson went down into the engine room to get the best reasonable work out of the motor. Even at racing speed the “Meteor’s” bow wave was not a big one. There was almost an absence of spray dashing over the helmsman. Tom did not need to put on oilskins, as he had often done on the “Sunbeam.” The “Meteor’s” bow lines were so beautiful and graceful, so well adapted to an ideal racing craft, that the bridge deck in ordinary weather was not a wet place.