“Oh, so-so,” never bothering to look from behind his paper. Phlegmatic old Buzz, McGee thought, what was the use of getting excited over an instructor’s job?
“Are they good?” McGee asked.
“Um. Dunno.” Still reading.
“Mine are great!” McGee enthused. “Stiff, crusty young C.O., who needs a couple of crashes–one fatal, maybe–but the rest of them are fine. Great bunch of pilots.”
“Yeah?” Still reading, but doubtful. “See any of ’em fly?”
“No-o,” slowly, “of course not.”
“Um-m. Well, wait until they begin sticking the noses of those new Spads in the ground, and then tell me about ’em. They’ve been trained on settin’ hens. Wait until they mount a hawk.”
36McGee jerked a pillow from the bed and sent it crashing through the concealing paper. “Old killjoy! If a man gave you a diamond you’d try it on glass to see if it was real.”
Larkin began rearranging his crumpled paper. “Well, why not? If it wasn’t real I wouldn’t want it. And I wish you’d keep your pillows out of my theatrical news. I was just reading about a play at the Folies Bergeres, called ‘Zig Zag’. They say it’s a scream. By the way, Shrimp, how’d you like to fly to Paris to-morrow morning and give it the once over?”
“Fine, but–”