“You mean that there is something dishonest involved?” inquired the boy.
“That all depends on what you call dishonest. Some folks are pretty finicky. This something doesn’t come within the law exactly, but there’s good money in it.”
“I don’t want any of it,” said Jack, and moved off.
The man called after him.
“All right, if that’s the way you feel about it, but just forget anything I said.”
Jack did not reply, but hurried on. He was bound for the Boulevard des Arts, one of the most beautiful thoroughfares in Europe. As he walked along, he wondered what the man who had intercepted him could have been driving at. He finally gave it up as too tough a problem. But later on he was to recollect the conversation vividly.
Jack’s pay was not very large, nor was that of his chum, Raynor, but the two planned a trip one day on one of the canals. They boarded an odd-looking boat and for a very small sum they voyaged across the frontier into Holland with its quaintly dressed peasants, low, flat fields and general air of neatness.
It was drowsy work gliding along the canal at a rate of not more than six knots an hour. Jack declared that he would have gone to sleep for the voyage, had it not been for the captain of the canal craft, who was a most willing performer with his whistle, and tooted at everything and everybody he saw.
From time to time they slowed up at a dock and the passenger, if a man, jumped off without the boat stopping. When a woman traveler wished to alight, the boat was brought to a standstill.
“Look over there!” called Raynor suddenly, as they passed a pretty cottage on the canal banks.