“I like it,” said David. “Pretty, and easy to say, but not silly.”
“Well, here’s wishin’ her all the luck in the world,” said Red. “And the same to us. They just got to let me go when she takes her first try-out. I’d no sooner let those engines out of my sight first off than I’d use an umbrella for a ’chute.”
“Better not let the engine crews hear you, you conceited devil! They think they’re pretty kippy themselves.”
“Good lads, all,” admitted Red. “What they don’t know about engines scarcely needs to be known, but it don’t matter what you do, David, you have got to put something beside knowledge in your work. It’s like those old fellas who used to put human blood in their cauldrons of metal when they made their church bells. They thought it made the bells sound sweeter. And so it did, so long as they thought so. You can’t say your engine is a fine old piece of bits and parts. You’ve got to love it. You remember last summer, when we flew east? I ran over to Providence to see my brother. Well, one night I wandered into the engine room at Brown & Sharpe’s, and the chief engineer showed me his engines. Gosh! there were tunnels full of them. And he went along with an oil can and a bit of waste, rubbin’ a bit here and a bit there, where God knows it didn’t need it, pretending to oil; just loving them.” He jumped up. “Honest, Dave, you’ve no heart! Come on! I’ve just got to have that sody—or perhaps I didn’t mention it before?”
He took a step around the aged car, and stood staring.
“Come here!” he said. “See Mr. Hammond over there? Do you see who is with him? Or is he, maybe, all alone?”
David looked.
“Don’t know the chap with him,” he decided.
“Look again,” begged Red. “Don’t you know that strut, and those skinny legs, and that face? Think, man, think!”
“Never saw him,” declared David.