“It’s a long story, mates,” replied the grinning Teddy, whose mercurial spirits began to rise, despite the lecture in store for him. “But first let me get rid of some of this grime and slip into some decent clothes. Then I’ll feel like a civilized human being again. Gee, there’s no hobo has anything on me.”
So Don forbore to question his friend further, and busied himself in getting out some of his clothes, while Teddy splashed about in the bathtub.
Teddy had scarcely finished dressing when there came a knock on the door. Don opened it, and the captain and the professor entered.
“Now, young man,” said the captain, as they seated themselves, “perhaps you can explain your action in running away from home and stowing yourself away on this ship. It goes without saying that your father knew nothing about it.”
The tone was cold and the look that went with it seemed to bore Teddy through and through and demand the truth. Not that Teddy thought of telling anything else. Falsehood was not one of his vices.
His face flushed almost as red as his hair as he fidgeted about, nervously clasping and unclasping his fingers.
“I—I—meant to tell my father,” he stammered. “I tried to find out where he was. I wrote and telegraphed and telephoned. But he was going from one place to another, and, somehow, I couldn’t get in touch with him.”
“Well?” said the captain, as Teddy paused.
“Then,” confessed Teddy. “I got desperate to think of Don going to Egypt without me, and I made up my mind to go anyway and tell my father about it afterward.”
“Afterward!” repeated the captain, with a sarcasm that was not lost on its object. “So you think it’s all right to do things like this and ask your father’s permission when it’s too late for him to say no?”