“Try: yes. I want to pay off old scores.”
“Ah, well!” said Uncle Jeff, “we have no need to fidget about that. Wait till the wretches come and then we’ll see.”
Chapter Thirty Five.
“Quite Safe Till Dawn.”
“It seems rather absurd for us to settle down to talk about making what people call infernal machines, Stan,” said Uncle Jeff, and he pointed through the open window of the office to the scene being enacted on the wharf, with a lovely background of river, cultivated ground covered with corn, rice, and fruit-trees, and beyond these hill and mountain of every shade of delicious blue. “Why, everything looks as peaceful as can be. Look at those trading-craft with the stores they are bringing in, and the village boats piled up with fruit, vegetables, and grain. Hullo! What’s that next one?”
“Oh, that’s the one that brings milk and eggs, poultry and little pigs,” said Stan, smiling. “We call it the Dairy.”
“I really cannot realise the horrors you talked about, Stan, and in the midst of such a beautiful scene of peace and content I can’t talk about torpedoes. Here, I want some of those bright golden bananas from that boat.”
Stan’s forehead puckered up again, and he did not even glance at the boat with golden bananas, oranges, and scarlet tomatoes.