"Right you are!" rumbled Captain Sixty. "See you again, messmates," and he lurched away with Miss Harris alongside him.
"Ach," muttered Carl, "dot leedle girl vas a peach, I bed you. Eferyt'ing iss all righdt, und ve all haf a finger in dot pie oof Downsent's."
"Wish I could smoke Townsend's weather roll a bit better than I do," said Dick. "I haven't any confidence in that man Sixty. From the cut of his jib, he's several kinds of a bear, bucko, bandicoot and crocodile. If we could, I think we ought to give him a good offing."
"We can't do that, Dick," answered Matt, "if Townsend's business throws us all together."
The boys fell into line at the purser's window, transacted their work there, and then picked up their luggage and went to their staterooms.
Each stateroom accommodated two passengers. Matt and Dick had one room to themselves, while Carl's room, which was next to theirs, would house a stranger in addition to the Dutch boy.
While Matt and Dick were stowing their traps and making themselves as comfortable as they could in their cramped quarters, Carl burst in on them.
"Vat you t'ink?" demanded Carl, closing the door securely behind him and dropping down on the lower berth.
"We're all ahoo and don't know what to think, matey," answered Dick, giving the Dutch boy a slow sizing. "Why? Have you anything in particular on your own mind?"
"I shouldt say! Dot Sixdy feller iss my roommate."
"You're welcome to him," said Dick. "I wouldn't take him for a roommate on a bet."
Matt turned from the washbowl, where he had been removing some of the grime from his hands, and reached for a towel.
"No accident about that," said he. "I'll bet Sixty fixed it up with the purser."
"I don't know why, but I've got a hunch that that's the way of it." Matt finished with the towel, threw it back on the rack and sat down in a chair. "There are a few things connected with this situation that won't hold water. Listen, pards, and see if you don't agree with me."
"We'll suppose," proceeded Matt, "that Townsend has brought us all together on the _Santa Maria_ for some work or other that's to be done in Belize. We'll suppose further that everything is all right and as it should be, and that Townsend had a niece whom he never mentioned to us, and a brother-in-law about whom he never said a word in all the time we have been with him. But why should the niece and the brother-in-law try to deceive us?"