“No, he didn’t do it,” confirmed Captain Quiller. “That’s been a shame, that has.” He avoided saying anything more definite, but they all knew he meant it had been and still was a shame to hold Nicky’s father in jail.
“Then, don’t you see?” gurgled Babs. She was too excited to be explicit. “Don’t you see, that now Washington would listen to us and we could ask?”
“Who’s Washington?” asked Nicky, quite practically.
“Oh, you know I mean the officials at Washington, of course,” Babs answered petulantly.
“I think that’s just a wonderful idea,” declared Cara, jumping up to get nearer her chum. “Babs, you’re too smart to live. Take care you don’t die or something.”
But Barbara Hale wasn’t joking; she was very much in earnest, and in less time than she could have thought it all out, she and Captain Quiller had come to a decision.
Of course, Nicky and Cara got a few words in edgewise, but they were mostly very little words and didn’t take long to say, for the way Babs and the old captain talked was simply prodigious.
“Aren’t you happy? Aren’t you glad, Nicky?” she demanded to know finally, for as a matter of fact the boy wasn’t showing any enthusiasm at all.
“About what?” he wanted to know. Wasn’t he tantalizing?
“That we’re going to get your father home,” Babs declared convincingly.