“Hunh?” he grunted, taken aback. “How come?”
“I heard you were stationed on this post, and you check with the specifications, sir. You are not without honor among your own people, you know.”
She turned up the cluttered cinder path, annexing a bamboo stool with one capable hand and a teakwood humidor with the other as she went. Billy stood shamelessly and stared after her until she disappeared in the house.
III.
It is told of Billy Cobb that he never had to woo the air.
The first instructor to take him up reported back to the pilotage office an hour later in a semihysterical condition.
“Say,” he demanded of the senior instructor who had assigned him to introduce Cadet Cobb to the opening chapter of the flying primer, “what’re you trying to do—kid me?”
“Kid you! How come?”
“This What’s-his-name cadet—this Cobb! If he’s a cadet I’m an ostrich!”
“What’s the trouble with Cobb?”