“Hot ziggetty dog! I sure do hope now they ain’t meanin’ to bust in on our fine ship an’ play hob with her—wouldn’t that jar you though, partner?” and Perk could be seen to grind those big white teeth of his as if gripped by a spasm of rage almost beyond his control. Like the Arab whose love for his horse is said to exceed any affection for his wife, most sky pilots feel an overpowering regard for their ship in which they risk their lives every time they jump off and Perk was peculiarly built that way.
“That would be a calamity for a fact,” admitted Jack, giving the two men under suspicion another little survey, “but we’ve got a good guard keeping tabs over the boat and he’s empowered to shoot if some one tries any funny business out at the hangar, so I reckon there’s nothing to worry over in that direction.”
Perk continued to grumble, half beneath his breath, showing how he felt under the skin about the matter. Jack on his part skillfully directed the low conversation into other and more cheerful channels so that presently, after the two strangers had passed out of the restaurant, Perk seemed to put them aside as “false alarms” and entered into the discussion of the merits of their beloved cloud-chaser with a modicum of his usual good nature which was just what his chum wished to have happen, so as to clear the atmosphere, which, in Perk’s case was getting considerably muddy.
III
THE HOLD-UP
Jack had certainly shown considerable cunning in starting to talk about some of the clever and novel devices with which their new ship was equipped in order to turn the attention of his chum into more pleasant channels for Perk soon became most eloquent in speaking of those wonderful discoveries.
“It sure is a great stunt, us bein’ able to quit the ground in ten shakes o’ a lamb’s tail,” he was speedily remarking, “’stead of havin’ to take such a long an’ often bumpy run. The way that boat acts under your pilotin’ makes me think o’ how a clumsy buzzard when scared, gives a hop up into the air for a few feet, starts them big wings o’ his’n workin’ and goes hoppetty-skip-petty off on an upward slant. Seems like the next thing we know we’ll have some sorter contraption that’ll jest give us a toss, like you’d fling a pigeon up, for a gunner to smack after it’d started to fly out o’ bounds.”
“I understand,” Jack told him, smoothly enough, “they’ve got something mighty near as wonderful as that, only it lacks just a little finishing touch to make it sure pop. Five years from now the boys who’ve come through with their lives will be looking back to our day as being still in the woods, and us pilots rough neck amateurs—such staggering things will be the regular line by then.”
“Jest see how the’ve changed a heap o’ the instruments we used to swear by in them days o’ the big war over in France, eh Jack? You don’t see so much difference, but us boys who were in that scrap sometimes c’n hardly believe it’s the same aviation world we’re livin’ in. From compass to pontoons, a dozen or two things have been vastly improved. Look at the new ship; we got aluminum pontoons to let us light on the water of a river, lake or the sea itself and with the wheels set in the shoes so as to make a landin’ on dry land whenever we feel like it.”
“Pretty slick trick that, I own up, buddy,” admitted Jack, “and best of all they seem to work like magic in the bargain. And of course we still go under the same old name of amphibian, for we can drop down anywhere with only a fair-sized opening.”
“Too bad they didn’t give the fine boat a name—havin’ only a number gives it a sorter orphan look, strikes me,” continued Perk, thus voicing an old grievance that thus far he had kept to himself.