Sally’s outspoken remarks worried Penny because of their bearing upon Mr. Gandiss’ son. “You don’t think Jack is mixed up with the Harpers in black market dealings?” she asked.
“Oh, no!” Sally got up from the deck chair. “He goes there to have a good time. And if you ask me, Jack ought to stop being a playboy grasshopper!”
Captain Barker knocked ashes from his pipe and put it deep in his jacket pocket. “The shoe pinches,” he told Penny with a wink. “Sally never learned to dance. I hear tell there’s a girl who goes to the Harper shindigs that’s an expert at jitter-bugging!”
“That has nothing to do with me!” Sally said furiously. “I’m going to bed!”
Captain Barker arose heavily from his chair. “How about the day’s passenger receipts?” he asked. “Locked in the cabin safe?”
“Yes, we took in more than two hundred dollars today.”
“That makes over five hundred in the safe,” the captain said, frowning. “You’ll have to take it to the bank first thing in the morning, I don’t like to have so much cash aboard.”
Going to the cabin they were to share, Sally and Penny undressed and tumbled into the double-deck beds. The gentle motion of the boat and the slap of waves on the Queen’s hull quickly lulled them to sleep.
How long Penny slumbered she did not know. But toward morning she awoke in darkness to find Sally shaking her arm.
“What is it?” Penny mumbled drowsily. “Time to get up?”