Stacy wasted many matches in trying to strike them against his damp clothes.
“Let me show you how to light a match when everything is wet,” said Tom. Placing the head of a match in his mouth, closing his teeth over the wood, Tom then drew the match sharply outward. The result was a sudden flare, which he applied to the tinder that Hippy had brought from his kit. A crackling, snapping blaze soon leaped up through the damp brush, developing into waving plumes of flame.
“Great!” cried the Overlanders admiringly.
“My, but you would make a dandy fire-eater in a side show,” declared Stacy. “How did you do that?”
“Never saw that done before, eh?” chuckled Tom.
“Not outside of a circus.”
“Watch me closely and I will show you how it is done,” volunteered Tom Gray, repeating the performance, observed closely by Stacy and his companions.
“Pshaw! I can do that, too.”
“I shouldn’t advise you to try it,” warned Lieutenant Wingate.
“I’ll try anything once,” declared Stacy, putting the head of a match in his mouth and giving it a quick outward jerk. The result was that the burning head of the match broke off in the fat boy’s mouth because he had clenched the stick too tightly between his teeth.