“Aye, it is—my cock-o’-pluck!” gurgled Andrew.
“‘Pulled a bone,’ up there—a blunder,” went on the freakish voice. “New radio outfit, shoved the power plug into wrong groove, short circuit—wires red-hot in a jiffy—spaghetti all blazing—”
“Aye, the inflam’ble, insulating clothie around the bit wires,” put in Andrew.
“Reached over for my chemicals to right of seat—” an amber-brown speck in one of the boy’s stone-gray eyes flashed—“unbalanced plane, she side-slipped, and now ... it’s three thousand for a new ‘bus’ and I can’t take a girl up this morning.”
“Pemrose,” breathed Una.
“Yes, Pemrose. Pretty—Pem!”
“Easy there—easy there, with that right leg—my cock-o’-the-clouds!” Andrew was muttering. “You’ve ‘pulled a bone’ in that, I’m thinking.”
“Ouch! Have I? You look as if I had broken every bone in your body by falling a few hundred feet.”
The aviator glared at Una—then winked his mischievous brown spot.
She could not wink back. Behind the red note of misfortune was, still, for her, the note of mystery: an echo that seemed borne from that hum-haunted wood, the tear in the violet’s eye—a nettle where no nettle was.