“While you’re about it, you might as well think us home and sitting out on the front porch,” said Billy. “It wouldn’t be so much harder.”
“Maybe if you’d do a little more thinking, I wouldn’t have to do so much,” said Bobby.
“Thinking!” echoed Billy, in an aggrieved tone.
“Don’t I think up all the jokes for this crowd? If I don’t, who does, I’d like to know.”
“Oh, well, that’s worse than no thinking,” declared Fred. “That doesn’t really come under the head of thought at all, as Mr. Carrier would say.”
“What is it, then?” demanded his friend.
“It’s just bum humor, neither more nor less,” retorted Fred. “I’ll leave it to the others if I’m not right.”
“No, I don’t think you are,” said Mouser, seriously. “I don’t think it’s humor at all, bum or otherwise. It’s just something that makes me feel sad, something like having a stomachache, for instance.”
“Oh, you go chase yourself!” exclaimed Billy, disgustedly. “I’m not going to waste any more time on you ungrateful knockers. Now that we’ve got light, I’m going to fix myself up a bunk where even this dizzy ship can’t shake me loose, and then I’m going to sleep until we reach China and they take the hatches off.”
“Well, pleasant dreams,” said Fred, grinning. “We’ll wake you up in time to go and tell your troubles to the Chinks.”