“Is it a proper question if I ask whether Mr. Delavan is now safely on his feet again?” ventured Halstead.
“It’ll take to-morrow’s dealings on ’Change to show whether he’s sage,” replied Mr. Prescott. “But, if he hadn’t been on hand to-day, just as he was, nothing could have saved him. By three o’clock this afternoon the Delavan-Moddridge combination would have been wiped off the slate for good. Frank Delavan will be back and fighting again to-morrow. Perhaps the greatest strain of all will be to-morrow, for the ‘shorts’ are powerful and they simply must fight. But Delavan isn’t by any means cast down.”
As if to prove this, Mr. Delavan’s voice was heard, at that moment, as he broke into a roar of laughter over a story that had just been told by one of his guests.
“He doesn’t seem to know what fear or nerves mean,” smiled Captain Tom. “I never knew a man who seemed to care so little about the things that worry most men to death.”
“I think most likely,” replied Mr. Prescott, musingly, “he is no more a stranger to worry than other men. But he has wonderful courage and perfect control of himself. Frank Delavan will never allow himself to be frightened until he has found out just what it was that scared him.”
Tom took a look up at the sky to see how the weather lay. Mr. Prescott took a few puffs at his cigar before he continued:
“By the way, Tom, I saw Horace Dunstan the other day, and, for the first time, got a complete account of all you and Dawson were able to do to serve him and his interests—perhaps I should say, his son’s interests—down at Nantucket. It was a thrilling yarn to hear, but made four-fold more interesting by the knowledge that boys of mine—that’s what I call you Motor Boat Club boys—were the ones who had acquitted themselves so magnificently.”
Then the two fell to talking over the happenings at Nantucket. Readers of the second volume in this series are already familiar with the occurrences at Nantucket. Then, by degrees, the two went back to the subject of those days in the Kennebec waters, which resulted in the organization of the famous Club, as told in the first book of this series.
When they had exhausted other topics Tom Halstead ventured to inquire:
“Can you tell me how Justin Bolton came out to-day?”