"I've a proposal to make to these children, with your permission, Marion," he said to his daughter.
"Say on, sir," urged Roger.
"Mr. Clark is getting very nervous about this man Hapgood. The man is beginning to act as if he, as the guardian of the child, had a real claim on the Clark estate, and he becomes more and more irritating every day. They haven't heard from Stanley for several days. He hasn't answered either a letter or a telegram that his uncle sent him and the old ladies are working themselves into a great state of anxiety over him. I tell them that he has been moving about all the time and that probably neither the letter nor the wire reached him, but Clark vows that Hapgood has intercepted them and his sisters are sure the boy is ill or has been murdered."
"Poor creatures," smiled Mrs. Morton sympathetically. "Is there anything you can do about it?"
"I told Clark a few minutes ago that I'd go out to western Pennsylvania and hunt up the boy and help him run down whatever clues he has. Clark was delighted at the offer—said he didn't like to go himself and leave his sisters with this man roaming around the place half the time."
"It was kind of you. I've no doubt Stanley is working it all out well, but, boy-like, he doesn't realize that the people at home want to have him report to them every day."
"My proposal is, Marion, that you lend me these children, Helen and the Ethels and Roger, for a few days' trip."
"Wow, wow!" rose a shout of joy.
"Or, better still, that you come, too, and bring Dicky."
Mrs. Morton was not a sailor's wife for nothing.