Then he groped around to get hold of the damper, for he was blindfolded and the smoke in there was getting thicker and thicker. Then he gave it a quick turn, then waited a few seconds, then held it lengthwise with the pipe for about twenty seconds.
R I said to myself.
Then he opened the damper three times, each about twenty seconds, and I could hear the fellows up on the roof shouting.
“O! It’s a good O! Bully for Wig Weigand!”
“Give me another towel, quick,” he said to Artie. “Is the window open? You better go up, Kid.”
It was the first time he ever called me kid and he had to cough when he said it. But I just couldn’t move. There was something in my throat and my eyes that wasn’t smoke, and I said, “I can stand it if you can—Wig.”
“Go on up, kid,” he said, “we’ve—got—got—her—talking—now,” and he coughed and choked.
“Go on up, Roy,” Artie Van Arlen said.
Up on the roof all the fellows were sitting around the edge with their legs over, watching the black column in the sky, and shouting when they read the letters. But I was thinking about those fellows down in that cabin filled with smoke and how they were doing that all on account of me.
“Pretty smoky down there,” one of the Elks said to me.