“All right,” Jimmie said with an air of resignation, “I’ll crawl back here in the corner and try to imagine that I’m in charge of a pie wagon on Third avenue. Perhaps I can dream a pie or two!”
The boy leaned back in an angle of the chamber and prepared to continue the discussion regarding the different kinds of pies sold at the old Williams street corner. As he did so, the support of his back gave way, his heels flew up in the air, and he tumbled all of a heap into a passage which seemed to begin at that corner of the room.
Hearing the fall and the exclamation of impatience which came from the boy’s lips, Ned turned on the electric and saw Jimmie lying on his back in a tunnel probably a yard in size each way. There were plenty of indications that the tunnel had been cut through solid rock.
As far as Ned could see; that is, as far as the eye of the electric carried; there were no breaks in it. Directly a chill breeze blew in from the opening, and the boy knew that the passage touched the surface of the mountain not far away.
“Je-rusalem!” shouted Jimmie, “hold up the light and let me see if I’m all here. That’s the second tumble I’ve got in this consarned old hole today.”
“If every tumble you get in life brings such results as this,” Ned declared, “you ought to go around the world looking for tumbles!”
“They hurt, just the same!” Jimmie declared, rubbing the back of his head. “I got an awful bump on my coco!”
“Well, crowd along!” advised Ned.
“Crowd along?” repeated Jimmie. “What for?”
“Use your nose,” advised Ned.