"Suppose Dudley had buffaloed Old Hickory into showin' him the map?"
"Well?" demands Vee.
"Wouldn't it be easy enough," I goes on, "if he had pals ashore, to pass on the description, have them start out in a fast yacht from New Orleans or Key West, and beat us to it?"
"But I don't see," says Vee, "how he could get word to them."
"Look!" says I, pointin' to the wireless gridiron over our heads. "Where do you guess he is now?"
Vee shakes her head.
"Gettin' in his fine work with Meyers," says I. "He's been at it ever since breakfast."
"Think of that!" says Vee. "And you believe he means to—"
"S-s-s-sh!" says I. "Someone might be rubberin'."
Does it work? Say, when I gets up to scout around, Rupert has disappeared, and for the first time since we've been aboard be leaves us alone for the rest of the forenoon. We didn't hate that exactly. Vee reads some out of a book, draws sketches of me, and we has long talks about—well, about a lot of things.