“Captain’s already on board,” the copilot said. “He boarded her in the hangar.”
“What’s the matter?” Cathy laughed. “Doesn’t he trust the ground crew to see that she’s ready to fly?”
“Don’t ask me,” Johnny replied, grinning good-naturedly, “I’m just the copilot. I take over the controls when the captain tells me to and I don’t ask questions. Then one of these days, if I’m a good boy, I’ll be a captain myself. I’ll know all the answers, but of course I won’t tell them to the rest of the crew. So there’s no use asking me anything—not now or a couple of years from now when I’ve got another stripe on my sleeve and am sitting up there in the captain’s seat.”
“You’re a big help,” Cathy scoffed.
“I told you I was,” Johnny said.
As the three entered the plane from the landing ramp, Captain March emerged from the flight deck, followed by a stocky man wearing a blue business suit under a light-gray topcoat.
“This is Mr. Jones,” he said, making the introductions. “Miss Barr, Miss Solms—Mr. Baker.”
Mr. Jones nodded briefly to each of the crew members in turn.
“Mr. Jones is making the flight with us,” the captain explained. Then he said to Mr. Jones: “Just take any seat you like, sir. These young ladies will see that you get anything you want.”
Mr. Jones removed his topcoat, handed it to Cathy, and sat down in an aisle seat opposite the door. He took a folded newspaper from his jacket pocket and began to read. Captain March and Johnny Baker disappeared through the forward door that led to the flight deck. Cathy had carried Mr. Jones’s topcoat to the wardrobe amidships. Vicki followed her down the aisle.