"I bar that," said Armstrong. "It'd give me nightmare."
"Well, I've warned you. If the Assyrian comes down like a wolf on the fold, somewhere about midnight, don't blame me."
But when, about seven o'clock in the morning, they compared notes, they found that none of them had been disturbed, and Pratt had a good deal to say on the advantages of the midnight hours for the refreshment of the inner man. Two empty ginger-beer bottles beside his chair approved his sentiments.
"It's only a respite, of course," he said. "They wouldn't have started their tricks without a reason; they won't give them up until they find them useless; and they'll make that discovery all the sooner if we open a defensive offensive. I propose to go into the village after breakfast; an idea's occurred to me; and I'll call at the post office and see if any answer has come from the fellow I sent that Russian newspaper to. You had better come with me, Jack; it's Phil's turn to be house-dog."
So it was arranged. Pratt and Armstrong rowed the dinghy to the ferry. Joe Rogers was standing at his inn door.
"Morning to 'ee, young gentlemen," he said. "You be Mr. Pratt's nephew, sir," he added to Pratt.
"How do you know that?" asked Pratt.
"Old Gaffer Drew telled me when he came home along last night. He said as 'twas the young feller whose tongue went like a clapper, so I knowed 'ee at once."
"Well, I'd rather be known by my tongue than by my finger-prints, wouldn't you?"
"Ay, we've all got our weaknesses. Mine is baldness, come of a fever I took aboardship when we was off Gallapagos. My old woman will make me wear a wig, though I could do without it this hot weather. And how do 'ee find No Man's Island, sir?"