The boy was quick to grasp the double meaning behind her comparison, and as he proceeded to button his shirt sleeve, the thread broke and the button flipped off, rolling across the desk.
“Just like a man!” she announced, taking his arm and joining the shirt cuff with a paper clip. “If I wasn’t so awfully busy, I’d sew it on for you!”
Now that he had passed the examination and was on the road to begin a new and promising existence, Lefty once more found time to devote to the opposite sex.
At the sign of encouragement visibly apparent, he leaned far over the desk and looked longingly at the lovely girl who sat smiling up at him.
“Are you always busy?” he asked.
Elinor hesitated for a brief moment and then casting her eyes down upon the pile of papers resting on her desk, replied: “Not—always!”
“How about to-night?” he urged.
“You’ll find the Commanding Officer’s quarters in the first building to your right,” she announced indifferently, “and please close the door as you go out!”
CHAPTER IV
The air was filled with planes, droves of them, flying in formation, casting their shadows over the Marine Aviation Base at Pensacola, Florida, like a great body of locusts.