“Then, see here—there’s a hundred dollars in that roll,” as he threw it on the desk, “forget that code rule a while and it’s yours.”
“Look here, Mr. Johnson,” said Jack coldly, “I’ve already told you what my orders are. As for your money, if it was a million it would be just the same to me.”
“Bah! You are a fool,” snapped the other, angrily snatching up the money and flinging out of the cabin, crumpling the code message in his hand.
“That infernal boy again,” he muttered, as he gained the deck outside. “This only makes another score I have to settle with him. These Americans, they are all fools. Well, Von Gottberg in New York will have to go without information, that’s all, if I can’t find some way of getting at the wireless.”
“Say, Jack,” asked Raynor, as the bearded man left the cabin, “did that fellow remind you of anybody?”
“Who, Johnson?” asked Jack idly. “Why yes, now that you come to mention it, there was something familiar about his voice and his eyes, but for the life of me I couldn’t place him.”
“Nor I, and yet I’ve a strong feeling that we’ve met him somewhere before.”
“Johnsons are as thick as blackberries,” commented Jack.
“Yes, but I don’t connect that name with this man. It was some other name altogether. Oh, well, what’s the use of trying to recall it—anyhow, Mr. Johnson, whoever he is, hasn’t got a very amiable temper. I thought he was going to swell up and bust when you refused that message.”
But further comment on the irate passenger was cut short at that moment by a beating of dots and dashes against Jack’s ears, to which one of the “receivers” was adjusted. He hastily slipped the other into place and then turned to Raynor with a grin.