Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/139

 about me, my mind would be quite at rest. Hal-lo! What have I said now, I wonder."

"By the piper that played before Moses, that ain't Rowe Shelly," said Willis, to himself, as he sprang from his chair and bolted up the companion-ladder. "Babcock was right, and I'm in for it, sure enough. Rowe's got sublime cheek, but it can't compare with this fellow's. Now what shall I do?"

It was plain as daylight to me, when I heard of it, that there was but one course of action open to the superintendent, and that was the honest and manly one. When he became convinced, or even suspected, that he had made a blunder, the best thing he could do was to order the yacht back to the pier and conduct Roy Sheldon to his hotel with such apologies as he could think up on the spur of the moment. But, unfortunately, Willis had never been known to do an honest and manly thing. Probably he never thought of it. He wasn't above a mean act, and when detected in it generally did something meaner to cover it up. And that was what he decided to do in this case. He did not go into the cabin again, but paced the