The English-born air ace blinked, and looked blank.
"Eh?" he echoed. "What say, Dave?"
"Just that the day will come, so help me!" Dawson answered, and leveled a stiff forefinger. "The day will come when I'll forget I like you, and will up and bust you right on your snoot. For cat's sake, Freddy! You're worse than a woman, from what I hear of them. Don't you ever shut up?"
Freddy Farmer propped a hand under his head and grinned.
"But I don't feel sleepy," he said. "I want to talk. Don't you? Now, really, you're not sleepy, are you, Dave? After all, we haven't had much time to talk since we got back from that Commando show in Occupied France. We've—I say! What's the matter, old fellow?"
The last was because Dawson's hands had come up in an attitude of prayer, and his lips were moving soundlessly.
"Just calling for strength," he told his pal. "For a second there I almost wished that you had been left behind, you doggone phonograph record. Look, pal, see these lines on my face? And these pouches under my eyes? Well, that's not from age. Just because I'm tired."
Freddy Farmer stared hard, and his face flooded with sympathy. However, there was a very wicked gleam in his eyes.
"I say, Dave, old thing!" he murmured. "I'm frightfully sorry, no end. I thought—well, as you Yanks say, that you could take it. I didn't dream that little Commando show in Occupied France would do you in so much. Put out the light, you poor fellow, and try to get some sleep. Want me to send down to the chemist shop for something to make you sleep? Drugstore, you call it in the States, don't you?"
Dawson carefully settled himself in a sitting position, and then, clasping his hands in his lap, he started to count.