“Guess you are right, Willie, and it’s a good thing you didn’t attempt it. Yet I’m sure you have the qualifications. I hadn’t thought about you in that connection before; but I can see how your ability fits you for the work. You remember the time we discovered some smuggling taking place aboard this very boat——” “The time you discovered it,” corrected Willie. “No interruptions now. I have the floor. You remember I wrote you about the smuggling. One of the Secret Service men that came to investigate the matter said that good detective work was nothing but close observation, correct thinking, and persistence. And I believe it. And I never knew anybody that could hold a candle to you for close observation.” “I wish I could believe it,” sighed Willie. “Well, it’s true, and sooner or later you’ll get a chance to use your powers of observation the way you want to. But in the meantime, don’t you worry about a job. We’ll make this trip to Galveston and back, and we’ll have a corking good time. And when we come back I’ll try to get you a job. You’re a mighty good wireless man for an amateur, and with a little help I can give you, you’d soon be competent to take a job.” “Gee! If you could get me a job, Roy, I’d be grateful to you to my dying day. I don’t care what it is. I’d take anything, so it was a job. Later on I could perhaps find just the sort of job I want. And you needn’t be afraid to recommend me, Roy. I’d make good.” “Of course you would. There isn’t any question about that. And anyway, I wouldn’t want to get a fellow a job if I thought he wouldn’t make good.” Just then the door of the wireless house opened, and a grinning, white-headed, old darky thrust his head through the doorway. “De puhsuh’s compliments, Mr. Mercer, and he say could you help him a bit he’d be ’bliged to you.” “Tell the purser I’ll be with him in a moment. And hold on, Sam. Just step in here. I want you to know my old friend, Mr. Brown. We went to school together and have been friends all our lives. Willie is going to make the next trip with us, Sam, and there isn’t anything on this boat too good for him. Do you understand?” “’Deed I does, Mr. Mercer. ’Deed I does, suh. It’s a pleasure to do anything for a friend of yours, Mr. Mercer.” And the grinning darky advanced and shook Willie’s proffered hand with seeming pleasure. “Thank you, Sam. Thank you. Please tell Mr. Robbins that I’ll be there in a moment.” The colored steward withdrew. Roy turned to Willie. “I’m sorry, Willie,” he said, “but I shall have to leave you for a little while. I offered to help the purser with some manifests, as soon as I had my telegrams off. He doesn’t know you are here, of course, or he wouldn’t have sent Sam up.” “I notice you are aces high on this ship, Roy,” said Willie. “And I understand it all right enough. It’s that old trick of yours of being nice to everybody. No wonder they all like you.”