"It's all owin' to when a letter can get there, Sonny. You may make up your mind that the Board will send word the quickest way possible, an' we've done the wisest thing by sendin' off the report, for we might wait six months—perhaps more—before we could speak a craft bound to Porto Rico."
"What's the matter with the inspector's telegraphin' to Sonny's father?" Mr. Peters asked suddenly, and the keeper started in surprise as this possibility was suggested.
"Now you can see how thick-headed I am!" he exclaimed. "Here is Sammy, who couldn't be expected to look ahead so far as that, comes up with the very idee. Of course the inspector will telegraph, 'cause I don't s'pose it would cost him anythin', an' the chances are your father'll know the whole story inside of the next eight an' forty hours."
"I hope that may be so," Sidney said half to himself, and Captain Eph cried jealously:
"Are you so anxious as all that to get away from us, Sonny?"
"Indeed I'd be only too glad if I could stay at the light all winter," Sidney said earnestly; "but I can't bear to think that father is feeling very, very bad believing I may be drowned."
"Of course you'd look at it in that light, Sonny, an' it shows your heart is in the right place. I am an old fool for sayin' anything; but the trouble is I've been gettin' it inter my head that you wouldn't go away very soon."
"How can he?" Mr. Peters asked as he gave way to one of those alarming gurgles he sometimes indulged in. "S'posen he knew this very minute where Sonny was, how's he goin' to get at him till his schooner goes to Porto Rico, unloads, takes on another cargo, an' comes back? I don't reckon that voyage can be made in any two or three days!"
"Sammy, you do say the brightest things now an' then, for a man who hasn't got a very big head, that I ever heard of," Captain Eph cried as if a great load had been taken from his mind. "That's the second time you've made me feel mighty good by jumpin' inter the conversation when I didn't s'pose you'd know what to say!"