“Yes. Yo’ wa’n’t fooling, were yo’?”
“Of course not,” rejoined Tom, heartily.
“And—and—would there evah be any chance fo’ me to get into the Motor Boat Club?”
“We’d be only too glad to have you for a Florida member,” replied young Halstead, “just as soon as you’ve shown that you can handle a boat of our kind.”
Then Halstead and Joe discussed with Jeff his pay in his new position, and the exact nature of his duties.
“I reckon it all seems too good to be true,” sighed Jeff Randolph, but he knew, just the same, that it was no dream, and he was happy.
“Now, I’ve got to keep mighty cool and lull any suspicions Dixon may have,” muttered Halstead to himself. “Of course he knows I received that letter from Clayton Randolph. Perhaps, until we get back to Oyster Bay, I can make Dixon feel that I don’t believe any such thing possible of him. Once we get there, and Clayton Randolph backs up what he wrote me, I’ll take the whole thing to Mr. Tremaine. Then, Dixon, if you are as big a scoundrel as I think you, your time will have come to pay back and take your medicine!”
CHAPTER XIX
A TRUCE, UNTIL——
“SO yo’ are Cap’n Tom Halstead. Yes, I reckon yo’ be,” assented the tall, lanky individual whom Tom and Joe found on the deck of the “Restless.”