“Do you have a pen or a pencil with you, Lou?”
“I might have a pencil.” Louise searched in the pockets of her jacket, and finally brought forth a stub with a broken lead.
“We can fix that so it will write,” Penny declared, chewing away the wood.
“I still don’t understand what you have in mind.”
“This is my idea,” Penny explained. “You know that whenever it rains Old Noah starts tossing message bottles into the river.”
“True.”
Penny groped her way across the room to the box which stood by the porthole. “Well, here are the bottles,” she said triumphantly. “What’s to prevent us from writing our own messages? We’ll explain that we are held prisoners here and appeal for help.”
“How do you propose to get the bottles overboard?”
“I’ll think of a scheme.”
“Even if the bottles did reach the water, one never would be picked up in time to do any good,” Louise argued. “It’s a bum idea, Penny.”