“He was all chawed up. We just managed to get him out of the water alive. If youse go on a battleship, look out about swimming over the side when you’re in tropical waters.”
“I guess there isn’t much chance for us,” remarked Frank. “Come, Ned,” he went on, “we really must be going!”
At that moment another man came up, evidently in something of a hurry, and he pressed eagerly forward to look at the morays. He shoved against Frank with some force, and Frank, in turn, collided with the stranger who claimed to be from one of the United States battleships.
“Here, look where you’re shovin’ to!” the sailor called to the newcomer. “What do youse mean by bunkin’ inter my friend here in that way?”
The other did not answer for a moment, but looked the speaker over from head to foot, and an angry look came over his face.
“What’s gittin’ inter youse?” the second man demanded. “I didn’t step on your corns, did I?”
“No, but you shoved my friend here,” and the sailor indicated Frank, “and I won’t stand for anythin’ like that. Not for a minute, no sir!”
“Aw, ain’t your friend got a tongue of his own?” roughly demanded the newcomer. “I didn’t hear him kickin’ none!”
There was contempt in his tone, and anger also.
“It really doesn’t matter,” Frank said. “I have no doubt it was an accident.”
“Of course it was,” insisted the man who had offended. “Youse is a gentleman, youse is, an’ I apologizes.”
“Does that mean I ain’t no gentleman?” asked the sailor, in fierce tones.
“Youse kin take any meanin’ from it youse likes,” was the cool answer. The newcomer was about to walk away, when the sailor stepped up to him quickly, fairly crowding Ned and Frank together to do so, and he grasped the shoulder of the fellow who had apologized to Frank.
“I’ll show youse who’s a gentleman!” cried the sailor. “You can’t insult me, nor bunk inter friends of mine!”
The two stood close together glaring at one another, with Ned and Frank between them. A crowd gathered in front of the moray tank.
“Come on, Ned, let’s get out of here!” whispered Frank into his brother’s ear. “There’ll be a fight in a minute, and we don’t want to be mixed up in it.”
The two belligerents separated for a moment, and the lads slipped out of the throng. As they did so an officer sauntered up.
“Here, youse! Cut out that rough stuff and beat it!” he said to the two quarrelsome men. The latter never so much as replied, but quickly disappeared in the crowd. There was some laughter.
“One was afraid, and the other didn’t dare,” commented a man.
“Come on, now, don’t crowd,” advised the officer, and the throng thinned out, while Ned and Frank, glad they had escaped any unpleasantness, emerged into Battery Park again.
“Did you see enough?” asked Frank.
“Sure. Now I’m ready for the next thing on the programme. Say, that sailor was a friendly chap all right, wasn’t he?”
“Too friendly,” Frank said. “I didn’t want him to get into a fight on our account.”
“I should say not. But maybe he meant all right.”
“Well, I’m not so sure of that. What time have you? It must be nearly one o’clock.”
Ned reached toward his vest, where he carried his father’s gold watch. He had chosen that as a memento of his dead parent, Frank taking a peculiar old ring that he valued highly. But instead of pulling out the watch it was the empty chain that dangled from Ned’s hand.
“Why – why – ” he began, a blank look coming over his face. “Why, where’s dad’s watch? I never left it anywhere! I had it not an hour ago, when we went in there! Now it’s gone!”
Frank uttered an exclamation.
“You’ve been robbed, Ned!” he cried. “Those two fellows – I see it now! That was only a game! They – ”
He paused, and hurriedly reached into his inside coat pocket.
“They robbed me, too!” he exclaimed. “They’ve taken the pocketbook and all our money! Ned, we’ve been robbed!”
CHAPTER VII – “LETS ENLIST”
For a moment Ned stood staring at his brother as if he could not believe the words he heard. He remained holding the dangling chain, to which, only a short time before, his dead father’s valuable gold watch had been attached.
“Robbed! Robbed!” murmured Ned, blankly.
“Exactly,” answered Frank. “Why, see, they twisted the end right off your chain! That’s a regular pickpocket’s trick. And as for my wallet – well, I ought to be kicked for letting them get away with it!”
“But who took it?” asked Ned.
“Those two men, of course. They were working together!”
“But they didn’t know each other, Frank. Why, they were going to fight!”
“That was only their trick, Ned, to take our attention off what they were doing to us. It is an old trick. I ought to have known it. But they were good actors, and they got away with it. Oh, hang it all! How stupid I’ve been!”
“Not any more than I was, Frank. But it doesn’t seem possible that those men were friends, after the way they talked to one another. They were so – ”
“Look!” suddenly exclaimed Frank. “Doesn’t that look as if they were friends?”
He pointed across Battery Park, where, walking rapidly toward the station of the elevated, were the same two men who had so nearly, apparently, come to blows in the aquarium. The men were walking along close together.
“They don’t seem very unfriendly now,” said Frank, bitterly.
Ned set off on the run toward them.
“Where are you going?” asked Frank.
“After those fellows! They shan’t get away with my watch and your money without a fight.”
“I’m with you!” cried Frank. “It’s as much your money as mine, though. I had it all together. Come on, we’ll see if we can catch ’em, but they’ve got the start of us.”
The two clever pickpockets had indeed an advantage. But Frank and Ned set off on the run, the younger lad crying loudly:
“Stop those fellows! Stop those men! They robbed us!”
His cry attracted considerable attention, and a crowd was soon following our heroes, for it does not take even such an exciting cry as “Stop thief!” to collect a throng in busy New York.
“Stop those fellows! Stop ’em!” yelled Ned.
“They’ve got our money!” added Frank.
By this time the thieves were aware of the commotion behind them. They had evidently anticipated pursuit, for at the sound of their victims’ cries, and at the sight of the crowd that had gathered to help in the chase, the two men separated.
Where one went Frank and Ned could not see, as a pillar of the elevated structure hid him from sight. But the other ran up the stairway, and Frank noticed, with despair, that a train was just pulling into the station.
“He’ll get away on that,” thought Frank, “and the other will be lost in the crowd.”
And that was exactly what happened. When Frank and Ned, somewhat out of breath, reached the elevated structure neither of the men was in sight. But a policeman, attracted by the throng and the sight of the two excited boys, ran over from where he was