Alex and Case both sprang up and reached for the speaker’s hands.
“And we’re with you!” they cried.
“We’re for the Amazon, too! No matter if I do get a grouch on now and then,” Case continued, giving the hand he held an extra squeeze, “I’ll show up right in the end!”
“I know you will,” Clay said. “I know you’re an all right boy, Case, he continued, “but you’d be a better companion if you wouldn’t get such grouches!”
“If I ever get another,” pleaded the boy, “just throw me out of the combination!”
“I’ll set my white monkey on you, after we get into the jungles of the Amazon valley,” laughed Alex. “Do you know I’ve got a white monkey there?” he added, with a look which he intended to be serious. “Surely I have! He’ll throw Brazil nuts down to me. Do you know how Brazil nuts grow? I’ll tell you. They grow in nests, like kittens, and when they get ripe the nest opens, just like a kitten basket, and there you are. The nuts fall to the ground and hunters gather them and bring them to Chicago and we put them on Christmas trees.”
Alex was the most imaginative one of the party, and sometimes he permitted his quaint fancies to break into words. Just now he was doing his best to seem cheerful, but, after all, it was hard work. The money had meant so much to them. It had been gathered together dime by dime, and every dollar of it had meant, to them, an hour or a day on the Amazon. Now it was gone, and Jule——
But no one should say a word against Jule. That was a point settled beyond dispute. They could suspend judgment until he came back.
“I’m going to bring home a cargo of Brazil nuts,” the boy went on, “all packed in an elephant’s trunk. I’ll sell ’em down on Water street and build a motor boat that can put the Rambler into her pocket. I wonder what Dr. Holcomb will say?”
“He’ll just tell us to dig in and get more money!” Case observed.