“I’m afraid, my boy,” he said, “that you are in for a disappointment. While I thoroughly believe the Sea Eagle is capable of conveying our whole party through almost anything, I am unwilling to place too great a burden on her at her first long-distance trial.”
Pudge’s face lengthened.
“Oceans and octopuses!” he groaned, “I s’pose I’m to be left behind, as usual.”
“I’m afraid it will be necessary,” was the reply; “you see, there will only be room under my present plan for experienced navigators. But not to keep you in suspense any longer, my present plan is to cruise down the coast to Florida, round that peninsula, and then fly up to New Orleans, and then possibly I might test out the Sea Eagle still further on a flight up the Mississippi.”
“Wow! And we’re to miss all that?”
“Not all of it, Pudge,” smiled the doctor. “I was planning to send you and Billy on ahead to meet us at New Orleans and make arrangements for our arrival there.”
“Cookies and catamounts! That’s not so bad. I’ve always longed to see New Orleans. But, then, would you take us with you up the Mississippi?”
“If we go—yes.”
“Look a-here,” struck in Ben’s bass voice at this point, “I don’t want to butt in, or nothing like that, doctor; but this here is a cruise that just suits me. Would you have any objection if I went along with ther boys ter New Orleans?”
“Why, I hadn’t thought of it,” confessed Dr. Perkins.