“Boy,” Jerry said, “do you always eat like this?”
“On the Kennedy boats, you do,” Cookie said. “Of course, almost all of the lake boats feed good. But there ain’t any to compare with the old white K Line.” Cookie’s face darkened. “Now, if you was aboard a Chadwicker, I don’t think you’d be chowing down so good.”
“How’s that, Cookie?” Jerry said, squaring himself away to attack his fourth egg.
“Humph!” Cookie grunted, as he started to sharpen a long thin knife. After a series of expert, clashing strokes against the sharpening steel he held in his hand, he bent over a haunch of bacon on his board and began to slice it down. “Chadwick’s the cheapest line on the lakes, that’s why,” he went on. “And I ought to know. Sailed on the Chadwickers for five years, I did. And not a night went by that I didn’t have to count the eggs and hand the keys to the icebox over to the skipper.”
Jerry chortled at the notion of a crestfallen Cookie locking up his beloved icebox for the night. “Boy,” he said, forgetting himself, “that’s one more reason why we’ve got to stop Mr. Kennedy from selling—”
Sandy Steele’s foot moved swiftly under the table, and Jerry clutched his ankle with a surprised expression of pain on his face.
“Hey, that hurt!” he started to say, but then, remembering their secret, he flushed in embarrassment.
Cookie had whirled and was looking at them with an expression of bewilderment.
“Selling?” he repeated. “Did you say selling?”
“Oh, no,” Jerry choked, his face getting redder and redder. “I said sailing. You see,” he rushed on frantically, trying to think of a good story, “what I really meant was....”