“A mighty quick cure, I should say,” remarked Billy. “I recommend you, Doctor Red Cross!”
“Turn your head to one side and shake it and I think the rest of the mud will fall off. Then by holding your head well over on one side, the mud will fall out of your ear.”
All this Billy did.
“My, but it certainly does feel good to be able to see out of both eyes and hear with both ears once again! So you all want to hear of some thrilling adventure I have had? Well, let me see which one I shall tell first, about being wrecked at sea, falling in the crack of an earthquake that opened at my feet, or being blown up by a bomb in this war or—”
“Oh, don’t tell us anything about bombs!” exclaimed Pinky. “They are too common around here. We want to hear something we don’t know so much about.”
“Well, then I guess I’ll tell you about the earthquake experience. It happened when Stubby, Button and myself were in San Francisco.
“One day we were trotting along one of the streets in Chinatown, the name given to the Chinese quarters of that city. It was about lunch time, and Button had jumped up into a milk wagon that had stopped opposite us, to see if he could not find some milk to drink, Stubby had run into a butcher shop to see if he could find some meat, and I decided to sneak into some Chinaman’s back yard and see what I could find to make a meal.
“Presently I came to a long, narrow, dark passageway that led to a back yard. I sneaked in quickly, so a Chinaman looking out the window would not see me. But alas, he did, and I had scarcely gotten half way down the passage when I heard a door slam shut behind me and a bolt slipped into place. I knew before I even turned around, when I heard that bolt slip into place, that I was caught in a trap like as not. But I went right on pretending I did not hear the Chinaman shut the door.
“The end of the passage opened into the back yard of a Chinese laundry and there were lines and lines stretched from one side of the yard to the other, but there were no clothes hanging on them when I went in. Without paying any attention to me, the Chinaman began to take down the lines, but instead of taking them all down, he only took a short one, I noticed. Then he made a slip knot in one end, whistling as he walked toward the laundry. He went inside, still without looking at me, and I was beginning to think I had been mistaken and he had not seen me enter and that the rope was not to tie me up, when out he came with a carrot in one hand, the rope still in the other.