“And we’d been all right,” snarled Barry Spink, who seemed to take an interest in affairs for the first time, “if it hadn’t been for that dummy. He put the jinx on us.”
“The jinx!” exclaimed Billy, laughing.
But Dan had noticed something else, and he repeated, curiously: “‘Dummy?’ What d’ye mean—dummy?”
They had reached the motor-truck and Billy hustled the half-drowned youths into the seat and bundled them up in the robe and blankets while Dan started the motor.
“Back to the fire house—eh, Dan?” he asked his brother, as he slid under the wheel.
“The boiler room at the shops is nearer. They’ll take ’em in and dry them,” advised the older Speedwell.
“I—I don’t care where in the world you take us as—as long’s it’s hot,” wailed Barrington Spink.
“But how about this ‘dummy’?” demanded Dan, of Monroe Stevens.
“Why, we had stopped at Island Number One and were repairing the rudder, when along come this feller who couldn’t talk.”
“Couldn’t talk?” cried Billy, waking up to the coincidence, too, and looking at Dan, amazed. “Why! there must be two of them.”