"This is getting to make me feel not so good," he grunted, as he stabbed an elevator button and waited for the car to come down.
"What do you mean?" the English youth asked quickly. "Have you heard something I haven't?"
"With your big ears?" Dave shot at him. "Such a question! No. I mean the parting crack everybody gives us. Good luck, good hunting, and so forth. It makes me nervous when everybody keeps wishing me good luck. Makes me feel they really do know something bad is going to pop, and they're saying to themselves, 'And he seems such a nice guy, too!"
"If they know you they're not saying that!" Freddy cracked back fast. "But I get the idea of what you mean. Frankly, I'm getting to hate those two words, good luck. Half the time I fancy they're not really meant."
"Boy, are you going sour in your middle age!" Dave chuckled. "Cheer up, pal, and—and Good luck!"
Freddy glared, and he might have started things right then and there but for the fact that the elevator came down at that moment and the sliding doors parted open. A couple of minutes later they were pushing through the door of Room Twelve Fifty. It wasn't a very big room, but it seemed jammed to the ceiling with Army, Navy, and Marine Corps pilots. Both Dave and Freddy spotted several pilots whom they knew. Then, suddenly, both came to a full stop and stared pop-eyed at the far end of the room. There was a desk there manned by a couple of high ranking officers. The pilots in the room were filing past the desk, and obviously giving their names, and so forth, to the two officers. One of them was an infantry colonel, and the other was an Air Forces major. It was sight of the infantry colonel that caused both Dave and Freddy to stop dead, and gape. In short, once again they were meeting their old friend Colonel Welsh, Chief of Combined U.S. Intelligence.
"Oh-oh!" Dave murmured. "Do you see what I see, Freddy?"
"I most certainly do," the English youth replied. "Fact is, we might have guessed, what?"
"Yeah, something like that," Dawson grunted absently. "The colonel in the flesh, huh? Well, that means there isn't any clam bake coming up, that's certain. But I guess we must have fallen down on that last job he gave us, Freddy. And he's very disappointed."[A]
"Eh?" Freddy gasped. "What do you mean, we must have fallen down on the job? Don't be silly!"