"Don't know, and don't much care," laughed Ned; "tell you what, Herc, you'd better get out and practice, instead of wasting time on speculations over Merritt, Chance and Co. By the way, I wonder what they would say if they knew that their old acquaintance, Kennell, was at large and up to his old tricks?"
"Join him, probably. Especially if it was in anything that would make trouble for us," returned Herc. "But what are you going to do this afternoon?"
Herc had noticed that Ned had not donned his aviation "uniform."
"I? Oh, Lieutenant De Frees told me I could get my drawings in shape for his examination of them to-night. He is to have one or two naval experts at his quarters, whom he is anxious to show them to. Herc, old boy, maybe we're on the highway to fame."
"Maybe you are, you mean," flashed back Herc. "I guess I'll be the same old stick-in-the-mud till the end of the chapter."
"Nonsense. Use your initiative. Think up something new in connection with our present line of work."
"A new way to tumble, for instance," grinned Herc.
"There you go. That's your great fault. You can never be serious for two minutes together."
"I can, too," remonstrated Herc indignantly. "That time I was in the brig on the Manhattan I was serious till—till they brought my dinner."