“Course! Well, I came to a narrow split in the rock, and I squeezed in and had my lunch, and there was a little box there, a flat box, and that thing you are so dippy about was lying in the dirt beside it. So I took it. And what of it, hey?”
“That’s what we are going to tell you right now,” said Eddie. “This is an infernal machine. One of the worst ever! And we have been chasing it all over the map. It ’most fell off the preacher’s desk in Sunday School, and mom darned dad’s glove over it, and Jack had it, and now you go skyshooting all over with it. What do you say to that?”
“I say it isn’t even funny,” said Fatty. “That’s as much an infernal machine as I am.”
“But it is!” Eddie declared stubbornly. “I saw a big case of them just like this, just this morning. You might have blown up the whole block!”
“But it’s not an infernal machine,” repeated Fatty.
“Oh, give up; it is, all right!” said Ernest.
“Well, then so am I!” sighed Fatty, leaning back on his pillows. “There is a rubber eraser and two pencils in it, and I don’t believe they will explode. Now I will tell you about how I got it back, and then you can look in and see for yourself.
“I went over by the pond, and Jack was lying on his face and he had this in his hand. He was snivelling, and I asked him what ailed him. He said he had a 'funny sing’ he had found in mother’s basket, and he thought he would wash it off. Well, it slipped out of his hand, and out of sight in the water. His arm was too short to reach it, and by-and-by, Jack said, a fellow came along and felt down for him and got it, but the cover had come off, and that was what ailed him when I arrived. So I felt around in the water, and found the end cap thing, and gave Jack a penny, and brought it home. And that’s all there is to your old infernal machine!”
Eddie went limp, and Ernest shook his head.
“Say, Ern, wouldn’t that take the spots off a cat? Such luck! Did you ever hear anything like it? Well, Fat, I would trust you anywhere to get out with a whole skin. But just think of Sunday School, and mother, and Jack. Wow!”