JACK HAS VISITORS.
The doctor had come and gone, confirming the verdict that Jack had
dreaded to hear. In the meantime, by the kind offices of the hospital
authorities, a message had been despatched to his uncle informing him of
the lad’s plight.
The nurse had told the boy all she knew of the matter and added an
admiring eulogy on Mr. Jukes, who, she said, had promised to call that
day and had ordered that no expense was to be spared in caring for Jack
in the meantime.
But all this fell on ears that were deaf. The one bitter fact that the
boy’s brain drummed over and over to the exclusion of all else was that
his ship would sail without him and his accident might cost him his
berth.
“Isn’t there any way I can be patched up so as to get out to-morrow?” he
begged.
The nurse shook her head.
“The doctor wouldn’t hear of it. You must lie here two days, at least.”
“You might as well make it a year,” moaned Jack.
After a while he dozed off, but was awakened by the nurse, who, in tones
of suppressed excitement, informed him that Mr. Jukes had arrived to see
him. Jack, who had been expecting his uncle, felt disappointed, but
still, he reasoned, Mr. Jukes might be able to throw some light on the
dark hours through which Jack had passed.
With Mr. Jukes, when he entered, was a tall, delicate-looking lad of
about Jack’s age. He shrank rather shyly behind his father as he gazed
at the sunbrowned, bandaged lad on the bed.
“Well, my lad, how do you feel this morning?” asked Mr. Jukes in his
brisk, close-lipped way as he took the chair offered him by the nurse.
“Much better, sir, thank you,” rejoined Jack. “I—I want to rejoin the
ship, sir.”
“Impossible. They tell me you cannot get out for two days, at least,”
was the decisive reply. “But I must say you are a hard lad to kill. When
you struck that lamp-post——”
“That lamp-post!” exclaimed Jack.
“Yes, down in Greenwich Village. You were running along like one
possessed. All of a sudden I saw you strike the post like a runaway
locomotive, and then down you came. Now, my boy, it’s up to you to
explain what you were doing in that part of town at that time of night.”
Mr. Jukes compressed his lips and looked rather severe, but as Jack
launched into his story, the magnate’s brow grew black.
“The rascals! The infernal rascals! I’ll offer a big reward this very
day for their apprehension.”
“I’m afraid there’s not much chance of getting them, sir,” said Jack.
“But it was fortunate indeed for me that you arrived on the scene,
although I cannot understand how it happened.”
This was soon explained, and then Mr. Jukes, turning to the
frail-looking youth, said:
“This is my son, Tom. Tom, this, as you know, is the lad who saved your
sister from drowning.”
“How d’ye do!” said Jack, gripping the other’s slim white fingers in a
grasp that made the lad wince, for, sick as he was, Jack’s grip had lost
none of its strength.
“Tom’s not very strong, but he’s crazy about wireless and the sea. Now
I’ve got to be off. Big meeting downtown. Tom, I’ll be back and get you
for lunch. In the meantime, stay here and get young Ready to tell you
all he knows about wireless.”
“That won’t take very long,” laughed Jack, which remark brought from Mr.
Jukes a repetition of the observation that it would be “hard to kill”
the young wireless man.
Mr. Jukes rushed out of the room as if there was not an instant to be
lost.
“That’s his way,” laughed Tom Jukes, as his father vanished, “always in
a rush. But he’s got the best heart in the world. Tell me all about your
trouble with those firemen and your life on the _Ajax_. I wish dad would
let me follow the sea. I’d soon get strong again.”
Jack, in the interest of having someone to talk to, forgot about his
damaged head. He gave a lively, sketchy account of life on the big
tanker, not forgetting the surgical operation performed by wireless, and
wound up with the story of the night raid on the tobacco smugglers and
his encounter of the night before with the revengeful firemen.
When he finished, Tom Jukes sighed.
“Gracious! That’s interesting, though! I wish I had adventures like
that. But they are doing their best to make a regular molly-coddle out
of me. The yacht and Bar Harbor in the summer, Florida in the winter and
a private tutor and a man-servant! It makes me sick!”
The lad shot out these last words with surprising vehemence. “I know a
lot of fellows who’d change with you,” said Jack.
“You do! They must be sap-heads,” said the rich man’s son; and then
suddenly, “How would you like to try the life for a time?”
“Me? Oh, I’ve never thought about it,” said Jack.
“Because if you would—but I forgot. I’m not to say anything about that.
That’s dad’s plan, and he’ll have to talk to you about it.”
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