“Have you brought any money?” she inquired mournfully.
The twins shook their heads.
“Then how do you expect to get home again?” demanded Gretel, with a fresh burst of tears.
“Oh, the passengers who make up the purse for us will send us home; they always do,” Jerry assured her cheerfully. “Stowaways never take any money with them. There was a little boy stowaway on the same ship with our uncle, and the passengers got up a concert for him, and gave him ’most a hundred dollars.”
“We didn’t bring any other things either,” added Geraldine, “not even a tooth-brush. Jerry thought it would be more of an adventure to go to bed without brushing our teeth, and with all our clothes on. Then of course we won’t have to take a bath in the morning. You haven’t got any night things either, have you?”
“Of course I haven’t—how could I have? I was just looking out of the window at the storm, and I saw you getting on the boat. I knew you were going to do something dreadful, so I ran after you just as fast as I could. Nobody knows where I am. Oh, what will Percy and Higgins think!”
“Oh, do stop howling,” exclaimed Jerry, at the end of his patience; “we’ll tell them it wasn’t your fault, and I don’t believe you’ll be punished.”
“Does your brother often punish you?” Geraldine asked a little anxiously.
“He never has punished me, but I haven’t known him long. It isn’t the being punished that I mind; it’s—it’s—oh, everything!” and Gretel broke down once more and wailed.
But there was no use in crying over what could not be helped, and in a little while Gretel dried her eyes, and began to wonder what was going to happen next. The twins would not hear of her first suggestion that they should come out of their hiding-place at once, and Jerry positively refused to produce the key of the locked door.