“What you doin’? Come up out of there!”
There was but one thing to be done—to come.
The boy found his knees shaking as he climbed the rope. He had a wholesome fear of ship’s discipline. On the high seas a captain is a king. What would be done with him now?
To his great surprise, nothing was done. The night watch took the affair as a boyish prank, and after a short lecture, let him go. That, however, ended his attempts to examine the chicle at sea.
“Have to wait until the stuff is in the warehouse,” he told himself. “It will take some quick moves after that. I’ll have to see some one high up in the Central Chicle office and get permission to make the search. Shouldn’t wonder if I’ll have to tell some one the whole story. Might be safe enough. Suppose it would.”
After these settled conclusions he gave himself over to enjoyment of wonders of the ship and the changing mysteries of the sea.
So, freed from the grip of the storm, the two steamers smoked away toward a common port, New York. On board each was a somewhat worried boy, worried but eager; worried about the outcome of their adventure, eager for its end. The Torentia, being a faster boat, docked first.
Fortune was with Pant for once. Scarcely had the ship docked when he went springing down the gangplank. The doctor had looked at his tongue, the immigration official glanced over his papers, then set him free.
To find the offices of the Central Chicle Company he discovered was something of a task. Once there he found himself confronted by a long room full of clicking typewriters and a smiling but determined girl at the telephone switchboard.
“Mr. Daniels,” he was informed, “is in conference. Will you wait? Have you an appointment?”