"Looks that way. What a gang of thorough-paced rascals they were."
"I guess Judson's business must be in a bad way to make him take such desperate chances to recoup by landing that contract."
"I suppose that's it."
Raynor lifted his eyes to the ship's clock above Jack's operating instruments.
"By Jove, almost eight bells! I've got to go on watch. This is my first job as second engineer, and I mean to keep things on the jump. Well, so long, old fellow."
"See you this evening," said Jack, as Raynor hurried off.
Jack soon became very busy. The air was full of all sorts of messages. Besides that, his cabin was crowded with men and women who wished to file last messages to those they left behind them. He worked steadily through the afternoon, catching meteorological radios as well as information from other steamers scattered along the Atlantic lane.
He knew that he might expect hard work and plenty of it all that day. There would be no chance for him to experiment with his Universal Detector. About dusk, Harvey Thurman, his assistant, came into the wireless room to relieve him while he went to dinner.
Thurman was a short, thick-set young man, with a flabby, pallid face and shifty eyes. He had got his job on the new liner through a "pull" that he possessed through a distant relationship with Mr. Jukes. Jack had not met him before, and, since they had been on board, they had exchanged only a few words, but he instinctively felt that he and Thurman were not going to make very good shipmates.
As Jack relinquished the head-receivers and the key to his "relief," Thurman's gaze rested on the Universal Detector.