“Nothing much wrong,” replied Jack. “I’ll be on board again by Tuesday, but I’ve got to stop in bed till then.”
“You’d better let George and me run the ferry for a day or two,” said Rodney. “You see if we don’t do a roaring business. The story’s got all over the place by now, and half the town has been down to look at the bullet holes on the sloop. Everybody will want to run across in the Sea-Lark to-morrow.”
“Go to it,” replied Jack. “That’s fine!”
Mr. Holden, bearing his miraculously restored money, slipped from the room and the visitors perched themselves on Jack’s bed, and George, frankly disgusted at having missed the adventure, insisted on hearing a full and detailed account of it. Jack acted as chief historian and Rodney saw to it that he left nothing out, and when they had ended George shook his head regretfully.
“Just my luck to get left out of it,” he said. “But I suppose that if I’d been along those thugs wouldn’t have tried anything.”
“You hate yourself, don’t you?” laughed Rodney.
“Well, with three of us instead of two—”
“George is right,” said Jack. “They wouldn’t have faced such odds, I guess.”
“Wouldn’t they?” demanded Rodney. “They went out to get that money back, and they’d have managed it somehow. Maybe they’d have acted nastier than they did. By the way, Dad and the rest of them said I was to tell you how sorry they are, you know, and—and all that. And Dad told me this morning that if you want a place in his office when you get through school you can have it. Wish you’d take it, because I’ll have a chance of seeing you now and then.”
“That’s mighty kind of him,” answered Jack, gratefully, “and I guess I’d love to try it. I wish you’d thank him for me, Rod. I’ll see him myself as soon as the doctor lets me out, but I’d like him to know that I appreciate his—his offer.”