“Huh! I’d like to said that same thing, buddy,” Perk told his mate, “on’y it ain’t in my blood to spout poetry you see but a feller c’n feel it in his heart, mebbe, even when he jest can’t say it.”
“Which is as true as anything can be,” vowed Jack who was well aware of the limitations of his chum and could appreciate his good points, even if in some ways Perk seemed a bit dumb.
They were soon on their course as laid out by the head pilot and making into the north at fair speed. Perk amused himself for some little time in carrying out his accustomed duties, which were numerous and so essential they must not be neglected. Later on Jack, realizing that Perk was no longer moving around with his customary bustle, managed to steal a glance in his direction to discover that the other was snuggled down and seemed to be gazing at something he held in his hand, as though wrestling with a weighty problem.
Jack immediately understood, for the object at which Perk stared so earnestly happened to be the small photograph he had received from the youngster whom he, Perk, had carried across that queer little bridge made of two ironing-boards when the tenement was burning in Salt Lake City.
He would turn it over so as to read the name written in a female hand on the back—“Adrian, at six years,” and then quickly reverse the card as if he hoped to instinctively pronounce the last part of the lad’s name that seemed to elude his memory with such disgusting pertinacity.
But apparently even that idea failed to work, for Jack heard no triumphant whoop break from his companion’s lips as he felt certain would be the case should he hit what he was after. The old saying, all signs fail in dry weather, was applicable in Perk’s case, it seemed. Still, such are the vagaries of the human memory that he was likely to suddenly utter the word he wanted just as he opened his eyes after a nap. It often comes about that way as many persons can testify.
Jack shook his head and grinned, muttering to himself meanwhile:
“Queer how poor old Perk does get so twisted up with names and he’s so dogged about it he never will give in till he gets what he’s after. Always makes me think of that ad. I used to see in the magazines about some kind of toilet soap. A baby in his little tub stretching out a hand to lay hold of a cake of soap and underneath the words: ‘he’ll never be happy till he gets it.’ That’s my pal Perk to a fraction—wish I could give him the high sign but since I never heard the name it’s beyond my ken. But anyway it gives him something to play with, like a baby’s rattle and how he does hang on to it.”
So Perk kept on staring goggle-eyed at that picture, just as if it mattered as much as three cents whether he ever again heard of the boy or his mother, both of whom Jack had somehow made up his mind, were evidently engaged in a search for some missing party who was especially dear to them but whose identity was now, and probably always would be, a complete mystery to the pair who had befriended them on that night of the fire.
“After all,” Perk finally said, and Jack could easily catch every word, thanks to the useful earphone apparatus they had on, “we did have a fine time o’ it—you made the neatest dead-stick landin’ I ever seen put through—we had a glorious supper an’ a nice night in camp as I might say—glimpsed a’ ol’ galliwampus o’ a big bull-moose on the gallop—it’d jest be complete if on’y I had a decent head on me so’s to grab that name—Adrian—Adrian what—shucks?”