As the partly sobered visitors struggled into their overcoats
Padden drew Locke aside, and, nodding toward Higgins, who was
still talkative, said:

"If you want to catch that ten o'clock boat you'd better stick
close to your friend; I know him."

"Thanks!" Locke glanced at the prostrate figure, then inquired in
a low tone: "On the level, will he make it?"

"Hard to tell. Just the same, if I was you I'd change my sailing--
he might come to."

"You chaps have done me a big favor to-night," said Locke, a
little later, when he and his companions were safely out of the
Austrian Village, "and I won't forget it, either. Now let's finish
the evening the way we began it."

Anderson, Rankin, and Burroughs, to conceal their nervousness,
pleaded bodily fatigue, while Anthony also declared that he had
enjoyed himself sufficiently for one night and intended to go home
and to bed. "That episode rather got on my nerves," he
acknowledged.

"Mine, too," assented Locke. "That's why you mustn't leave me. I
just won't let you. Remember, you agreed to see me off."

"'S'right, fellows," Higgins joined in. "We agreed to put him
aboard and we must do it. Don't break up the party, Kirk."