"Oh! I just guess that ain't anything so remarkable. Percy hasn't got the push on our biplane. I'd take my affidavy that we went faster than that at one time when Frank let her out. You wait and see; some fine day we'll show you a sight that'll make your eyes stick out."
Andy was not a boaster as a rule; but whenever Percy Carberry started to show what a mighty conqueror of the air he had become, something seemed to rise up within the second Bird boy that made him give vent to such expressions.
"He knows we're watching him, that's why he does it!" said wise
Elephant.
"Sure," Larry admitted; "but that don't take away anything from his circus stunts, does it? Now he's going to swing around and circle your field, Frank. Wish he'd take a notion to drop down here, and let's look his new article over."
Andy laughed scornfully.
"I see him doing that same, Larry, when water runs up hill!" he observed sarcastically. "Did you ever know Percy to be open and frank? Ain't he always hiding what he knows, and trying to spring surprises on people? You don't catch him letting Frank look over his biplane, not if he knows it. Why, he's afraid Frank might get on to some little device that he expects will play a big part in the game, if ever he races us again. Huh! come off your perch, Larry, and take another guess."
"Well, there he goes around the field," the other went on. "Listen to the hum of the propellers, would you? Don't they make sweet music, though? I'm afraid I'll be like poor little Elephant here, and get the aeroplane fever myself, if this thing keeps on. Then there'll be a whole flock of us bobbing around."
He laughed heartily at the idea, as though he could imagine himself whizzing through the air "like a comet," as he remarked.
"Look at Sandy swinging his hat!" called out Elephant. "He's yelling something too, but I can't make it out, because of the racket the machine makes."
"Well, it wouldn't be hard to guess," declared Andy; "because you know how Sandy Hollingshead likes to boast. The joke of it is, he never does anything but hang on to his crony, and keep up the shouting. He's such a coward naturally that I don't understand how he finds the nerve to go up in that cranky craft with Percy."