"Why isn't it?"
"Because this is a public vessel—that is, public in as much as all properly accredited persons who desire may go to England on her. Lieutenant Secor must have his passport, or he wouldn't be here. And, as this is a public place, he has as much right here as we have.
"And of course if you had asked him, Joe, especially with the show of indignation you're wearing now, he would have told you, and with perfect right, that he had as much business here as you have. He didn't follow us here; I think he was on board ahead of us. But if he did follow us, he did no more than some of these other passengers did, who came up the gangplank after us. This is a public boat."
Joe looked at his chum a moment, and then a smile replaced the frown on his face.
"Well, I guess you're right," he announced. "I forgot that anybody might come aboard as well as ourselves. But it does look queer—his coming here so soon after he spoiled our films; whether intentionally or not doesn't matter."
"Well, I agree with you there—that it does look funny," said Blake Stewart. "But we mustn't let that fact get the better of our judgment. If there's anything wrong here, we've got to find it out, and we can't do it by going off half cocked."
"Well, there's something wrong, all right," said Charlie Anderson, smiling at his apparently contradictory statement. "And we'll find out what it is, too! But I guess you're right, Blake. We've got to go slow. I'm going below to see if our stuff is safe."
"Oh, I don't imagine anything can have happened to it—so soon," said Blake. "At the same time, we will be careful. Now we must remember that we may be altogether wrong in thinking this Frenchman is working against us in the interests of our rivals, Sim and Schloss. In fact, I don't believe that firm cares much about the contract we have, though they have tried to cut in under us on other matters. So we must meet Lieutenant Secor halfway if he makes any advances. It isn't fair to misjudge him."
"I suppose so," agreed Joe. "Yet we must be on our guard against him. I'm not going to give him any information about what we are going across to do."
"That's right," assented Blake. "Don't talk too much to anybody—especially strangers. We'll be decent to this chap, but he is no longer a guest of our nation, and we don't have to go out of our way to be polite. Just be decent, that's all—and on the watch."