“I’ve seen him in several scraps,” answered Clay.
“Well,” went on the captain, “when the bulldog gets into a fight, the harder they chew him the tighter he hangs on, and that’s about the way all the money and reputations have been made in this combative world.”
“Oh, we hadn’t any idea of turning back,” Clay hastened to say. “I only wanted to know what the others thought about it.”
“Well you found out pretty quick,” laughed Jule. “Why, we’ve had four or five days that we haven’t had a fight, or seen a midnight prowler, or been dumped on a sand bar, or experienced any other pleasant little incident of that description. I was actually beginning to fear that our river trip from this time on would be one long sweet dream.”
The boys passed another restful night and were up with the sun. The first thing Alex did after bathing and dressing was to spring to the pier and start off into the city.
“Here, here!” cried Captain Joe. “We don’t allow little boys to go wandering off alone! If you’ve got to go, I’m going with you.”
“That’s fine!” shouted Alex, capering about on his toes. “Come along, and we’ll take the old town to pieces to see what makes it tick.”
“I’m going uptown,” Alex explained as they mounted one of the sidling streets which led up from the river, “to buy a porterhouse steak that weighs ten pounds. This will be our last chance.”
“Now,” said Captain Joe mildly, “don’t you think a porterhouse steak weighing nine pounds and a half would be enough for our breakfast?”
“But we ain’t going to have this steak for breakfast,” Alex protested. “I’m going to put this steak in that cute little cold air refrigerator of ours and when wet get down to Cartier island, I’m going to cook a beefsteak a la brigand. If you eat a steak cooked in that way once, you’ll never want one cooked any other way. It’s simply great!”