“Go below and enjoy yourself, sir,” laughed Tom, without malice, but without thinking. “You’ve done yourself proud, Mr. Moddridge, and you’re entitled to the best attack of nerves you can find.”
Hank sprang quickly to aid Mr. Moddridge, for the latter was really shaking and tottering as he started aft.
“Still no one seems able to tell me about the thing I want most of all to know about—the condition of the market, and of securities in particular,” complained Francis Delavan, in a much stronger voice.
“No one knows well enough how to tell you,” laughed Skipper Tom, “except Mr. Moddridge. If you only knew, sir, what a trump he’s been lately, you wouldn’t begrudge him one first-class nervous fit now.”
Mr. Delavan laughed, though he added, with a comical sigh:
“I don’t see but I shall have to wait.”
“Something to eat, did you say, sir?” asked Hank, suddenly appearing at the owner’s elbow. “Yes, sir; as fast as possible for all hands. Why, we’ve been so rattled this morning we didn’t even think about food. And now my stomach is reading the riot act to my teeth. O-o-oh!”
Hands clutched over his abdomen, Hank made a swift disappearance into the galley. There was an abundance of food in the “Rocket’s” larder that could be prepared hastily. But as Mr. Moddridge was “enjoying” himself in his own especial way, and Mr. Delavan was still feeling the effects of the chloroform too much to have any appetite, the crew fell in for the first chance at table.
When that food had been disposed of, Joe cautiously worked the engine on until the boat was making twenty miles an hour. The new valve proved fully equal to the strain put upon it.