"Ha, ha! Emile's onto you, Jack!" rejoiced Jerry.
"You're my twin," flashed back his brother, with the wide, jovial grin that so characterized the Twinkle Twins.
"I'm sorry, but it can't be helped," retaliated Jack, duplicating Jerry's grin. "Now let's side-track these playful little compliments and get down to business. I'm crazy to know what you fellows have been doing since you left Sterling. You tell your tale and then we'll tell ours. Wait a minute till I shoo this waiter away. We don't want to order yet. We want to talk."
"We were down south at Marvin for a while, then one day we started out on a hike with a big detachment of Sammies, and we never went back any more," began Bob, when Jack had temporarily banished the waiter from their vicinity. "First thing we knew we were piling into a train and after we rode awhile in that we got tired of it, and switched off to a transport for a change. It was the Columbia, and I guess——"
"The Columbia!" exclaimed three voices in unison.
"Yes, I guess we do know what happened to the Columbia," emphasized Jack. "And you fellows were in that mix-up and came out O. K.! Well, what do you think of that?"
"How'd you get away from her, and what happened to you?" was Jerry's excited question.
"Three of us were taken off her by a destroyer. Bob got into a lifeboat, and another destroyer picked up that crew. I was the only one who got wet. I had a swim in the nice cold water, and a trawler took me in when I got tired," ended Jimmy whimsically.
"That's the way he tells it," sniffed Bob. "Now let Bobby speak his piece."