“Oh!” and Jack's voice was decidedly different. It had lost all its flippant tone. “Say, he certainly is in tough luck. I wish we could do something for him—and his sister. Doubtless you were thinking of her, too,” and a little smile curled his lips.
“Yes, I was thinking of Nellie,” conceded Tom, and he was so bold and frank about it that Jack choked back the joke that he was about to make. “I was thinking that we haven't done very much to redeem our promise.”
“But how can we?” asked Jack. “We haven't had a chance to do anything to rescue Harry. Of course I want to do that as much as you do, but how is it to be done? Can you answer me that?”
“We can't do it by just talking,” said Tom. “That's what I've been thinking about. A scheme came to me in the night, and I've been waiting to tell you about it.”
“Shoot then, my pickled blunderbuss,” returned Jack. “I'm with you to the last drop of petrol.”
“Well, I don't know that it's so much,” said Tom. “It's only that we ought to get word to Harry, somehow, that we're thinking of him and trying to plan some way of rescuing him. We ought to tell him his sister is here, too, and, at the same time we might drop him something to smoke and a cake or two of chocolate.”
Jack looked at his chum in amazement. Then he burst out with:
“Say, while you're at it why don't you send him a piano, and an automobile, too, so he can ride home when he wants to? What do you mean—getting word to him? Don't you know that the beastly Huns will hold up the mail as they please, and anything else we might send. They don't even let the Red Cross packages go through until they get good and ready. Talk about your barbarians!”
“Oh, I wasn't thinking of the mail,” replied Tom.
“No? What then?”