Rick laughed, too, but when Cap'n Mike doubled up with mirth, he began to grow a little irritated. "It isn't that funny," he said, a little tartly. Scotty chuckled. "Maybe this is what amuses him." He reached over and plucked a small menhaden from the breast pocket of Rick's jacket. "Dangdest place to carry fresh fish I ever saw," Cap'n Mike said, and went off into gales of laughter again. Rick took out his handkerchief and mopped his face. "Well," he said, grinning, "I'm sure glad those menhaden weren't whales." They drove home to Whiteside with all windows wide open and newspapers on the seat to protect the car, but even so, the stench of oily fish made Rick feel a little queasy. "We can't go to Spindrift like this," he complained. "Tell you what, I'll take the wood road that goes down by the tidal flats. Then one of us can cross over, get clean clothes for both of us and some soap and towels. We can go to Walton's Pond, take a swim, scrub off the fish, and change." "Good idea," Scotty agreed. "But these coats and pants will have to be dry cleaned." "That's easy. There's a night service door at the cleaners where we can just push them through." Scotty chuckled. "You won't get any thanks for that. The whole dry cleaning place will smell like a fish market before morning." "We'll wrap them up good in plenty of newspapers." "Where do we get the papers?" "From the _Morning Record_. I want to go there, anyway." Scotty gave him a sideways glance. "Got an idea?" "Just a glimmer." Rick's lips tightened. "And I'll tell you something else. Until now, this case was just sort of interesting for itself, but now I have a personal interest. I think the Kelsos are at the bottom of it." "And we owe them a debt," Scotty finished. "Carrots, anyway. What do you suppose he dumped the scoop on us for?" Rick shrugged. "Sheer poison meanness. And weren't we warned not to go to Seaford?" An hour later, when they had cleaned up, the boys returned the car to Gus, apologized for the faint but definite aroma of dead menhaden, and walked to the _Morning Record_ office. Duke Barrows, a veteran newspaperman but young in years, greeted them cordially. "Hello, Rick, Scotty. Here are those cards you asked for." He swiveled his chair around and regarded them with interested eyes. "Getting anywhere on that Seaford yarn?" "We're still feeling around," Rick replied. "But there's a good story in it if we can find the lead." "Keep working then," Duke said. "I'll pay you space rates if it hits page one." "How much is that?" Scotty wanted to know. "Twenty-five cents a column inch on this sheet. You didn't expect to get rich, did you?" Rick returned Duke's grin. "If this story is as good as I think it is, we'll just about get rich. You'll want to cover the whole front page with it." "Can't be that good," Duke returned. Rick looked around the office. "Where's Jerry?" "In the composing room. He'll be back in a minute. Got anything on your mind?"