“It sounds to me, Buddy, but if we’re goin’, the sooner the quicker says I.”
“The Twentieth Century Limited leaves the Grand Central Station at 2:45 in the afternoon and pulls into the LaSalle Street Station at Chicago the next morning in time so that we can make connection with the North Coast Limited of the Burlington Route which carries a Northern Pacific sleeper through to Seattle. How about leaving to-morrow afternoon?”
“All to the good; that’ll give me time to see me goil and tell her I’m goin’ to Ilasker,” for Bill, be it known had become very much smitten with Vera Clair, the little blond telephone girl down in the office of the American Consolidated Oil Company. And Vera, who could roll the number three under, over, through and above her tongue with the best of operators, and who also lived in Harlem, thought quite well of Bill, too.
“If you say that,” warned Jack, “Miss Clair will think you are going to ask her a very important question and you might find yourself in a somewhat embarrassing position.”
“What d’you mean ‘ ’barrassin’ position,’” questioned Bill sharply, blinking the while at Jack.
“Why she might think you meant you were going to pop the question⸺”
“Put the pedal on that soft stuff right where you are, or I’ll make youse put up your dooks, see, Buddy.”
“Then say A-las-ka, as I told you before, and you’ll be on the safe side,” again explained Jack.
“All right, A-las-ker then,” Bill attempted once more and Jack gave up trying to teach him how to pronounce it as a bad job.
The next afternoon the boys met at the Grand Central Station with their big suit cases and each carried in his money-belt two hundred dollars in cash and a draft on the National Bank at Skagway for a thousand dollars. It was not long before they were on board the Twentieth Century Limited and were being whirled through the tunnel under New York and up to Mott Haven; there the powerful electric locomotive gave way to a gigantic steam locomotive and they were soon running along the edge of the historic Hudson River headed toward the field of their new endeavors.