"Oh! I don't know," said the optimistic Andy; "we always manage somehow, to come out of every affair right-side up, and they get the rough end of the deal, as they should because they won't leave us alone to manage our own business. I can see some warm times coming soon, when they get to cruising around once more."
"Well," said Frank, thoughtfully, "I never believed that Percy had really reformed when he said he was through playing mean tricks. He's always kept quiet about that trip down to South America. Why, he even accused me of giving him away just because I told of our adventures there, even glossing over the part he played in our little rumpus with the revolutionists in Columbia, at the time I found my dear father, and rescued him."
"That's just like Percy," declared Larry. "Don't I size him up, though? He never knew what gratitude meant. I've been told that you and Andy really saved his life down in that upset country."
"Oh! perhaps it wasn't quite all of that, Larry," protested Frank.
"All right," spoke up Andy immediately; "at least we got those fellows out of a mighty tough hole. But it was just like Percy to declare that he was going to use some chloroform he had with him, to put the whole bunch of revolutionists to sleep, take their guns away, bind them hand and foot, and send some of the government troops out to capture 'em. So you see, we spoiled all that fine game by insisting on rescuing him and Sandy."
Larry laughed uproariously.
"Too bad about that chap," he remarked, when he could catch his breath again. "He's that slippery you never know when you've got your finger on him. And the excuses he gets up to cover his knockouts, they just sizzle. I reckon Percy is bound to be a promoter when he grows up."
"Say, let's all go down to the railroad yards, and watch Percy get his machine on the cart?" suggested Elephant, wickedly.
"Count me out, fellows," remarked Frank, immediately, "I don't want him to think I'm curious about what he bought that time he went to New York. Perhaps it's a better aeroplane than we've got here; but I don't believe it yet, after what she did for us in the tryout this day."
"Besides," observed Larry, "the chances are ten to one such a sly fellow as our Percy ain't going to knock the crates around the many parts of his machine into flinders right there in the open. He likes a little bit of mystery too, even if he hasn't got any reason to hide things."