“So would I,” said Belding, shaking his head threateningly. “But what good is that? I bet we never set eyes on the scamp again.”
“My heye!” exclaimed the big British seaman, “let’s ’unt ’im down.”
“He’s had half an hour’s start,” said Belding, hopelessly. “And he was going some when he started—believe me! We’d never catch him.”
“’Ow do you know?” returned Willum Johnson. “Let’s send these little nippers,” indicating Frenchy and Ikey, “back to the bloomin’ port for ’elp, hand then scour the ’ole bloomin’ country.”
“We’d better all go back and report,” Whistler Morgan said seriously. “We fellows can’t be much longer ashore, Mr. Johnson. We’re due at the dock pretty soon.”
“Bli’me!” exclaimed the man. “Hi’ve overstayed my leave already. Hin for a penny, hin for a pun, say Hi!”
But Whistler argued with him, and he became more reasonable. Now that the fumes of alcohol were out of his head he was rather a tractable fellow.
“There is going to be trouble over this,” Al Torrance prophesied. “We’d better give the alarm in a hurry. That Hun must be captured before he does some damage.”
“He can go almost anywhere in a Yankee uniform—if he speaks English,” said Whistler.
“Oh, he speaks it all right,” said Belding.