So I shut my eyes and drew down my face, sober-like, which set everybody to laughing again. You can see I was good.
Scoop went on with his performance. And at the proper time, at his command, I slowly opened my eyes. As I did so I felt something touring around on the back of my neck. I hadn’t any doubt what it was, for the air was full of pinch bugs. Not small ones, but the big kind, that sort of swoop down on a fellow and grab a hunk of skin and start gnawing. I tried to wriggle my neck, to make the bug fly away. But it hung on like a plaster.
“Ouch!” I screeched, when the hungry skin eater had started in on his supper.
The audience roared. It probably did look funny to them; but, let me tell you, it wasn’t funny to me.
Scoop stepped to the front of the stage.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he grinned, “our ‘Living [[63]]Head’ has been punctured by a pinch bug, so we will have to end the show and send for a plumber.”
We had carefully instructed Red that he was to reverse the propeller at a certain point in the show, timing our excursion so that we would get back to the dock at nine o’clock, a few minutes after the show came to an end.
So, as I left the stage, rubbing the back of my neck, I had no other thought than that we were within sight of the dock. Consider my surprise, therefore, to learn that we were still a half mile in the country.
Getting out of my suit I hurried to the rear deck to see if Red needed help.
“Something’s wrong,” he told me, turning a pair of anxious eyes on me.