“Don’t you be so certain,” snapped out Fanning Harding, who stood close by, and to whom the words were gall.
“Why, what’s the matter with you, my young friend,” asked the jovial man; “you must be meaning to get it yourself.”
“That’s right,” was the confident reply.
“Well, don’t count your aerial chicks before they’re hatched,” was the merry rejoinder. A laugh at Fanning’s expense went up from the crowd. The boy flushed angrily and strode off in the direction of his hangar.
“Confound that young Jackanapes of a Roy Prescott,” he muttered, as he went; “he gets ahead of me every time. But I’ll fix him. Pop needs that land, and if Roy wins this race the Prescotts can pay off that mortgage and be on the road to riches. Well, I guess I’ll settle all that. But I’ll have to act quickly.”
“You seem to be sore on that Prescott boy,” came a voice at his shoulder suddenly.
Fanning turned quickly to find himself confronted by the unprepossessing individual who had stood at his side during the start of the Golden Butterfly, which was by this time almost out of sight in the eastward.
“Why, what do you know about it?” he asked, sharply.
“Well,” was the rejoinder, “being an observing sort of an individual I figured out that you were not best pleased at seeing what a fine aeroplane that kid has. Right, ain’t I?”
He coolly took from his pocket a disgusting-looking cigar stump and proceeded to light it, leering impudently into Fanning’s face the while.