"You shall have a stateroom de luxe, with a brass bedstead, and a dressing-table furnished with gold!"
"What me! Lizzie Regan! Oh law!"
"Can you get away to-night?"
"I'd chuck a dozen boarding-houses for such a chance! Sure! As it happens the house is full, and I've got a cook who is not quite feeble-minded. My cousin will run in and keep an eye on things."
"That's settled then. Run along and get ready, and I'll watch Bobo till you get back."
Bobo listened to the plan of the proposed cruise in sullen apathy. Jack could not tell what he meditated doing. In order to be on the safe side, Jack called on Hugh Brome, his lawyer, to assist him with the evening's arrangements. It promised to be a great lark—for everybody except Bobo.
At nine o'clock that night an invalid completely swathed in blankets was tenderly carried out of the private side door of the Madagascar by two friends, and placed in a waiting limousine. A comfortable-looking nurse hovered over him solicitously. Any passerby might have been surprised to hear convulsive giggles from the three attendants—but perhaps he would have put it down to nervousness. Obviously the patient was very sick. But if the wrappings had fallen away from his head, the passerby would certainly have been astonished to see that he was gagged!
An hour later Jack and Hugh Brome stood on the coal dock watching the superb vessel back out into the river.
"Well, he's out of harm's way for awhile," said Jack. "He has no clothes aboard but dressing-gowns and slippers!"