The Hon. Cordell Hull
Secretary of State
Washington, D. C.
"Jumping catfish!" Dawson choked out before he could check his tongue. "But—but why doesn't this go by diplomatic pouch, sir?"
"I don't know myself, Dawson," the group captain told him. "For a good reason, no doubt. I simply know that it arrived here half an hour ago, along with instructions to turn it over to you two chaps for delivery. Perhaps you'll learn the reasons in Washington. Perhaps not, too. No matter, though. Just take it along, and don't let anybody get so much as a look at it. Well, let's get on over to the aircraft."
"Yes, sure," Dave mumbled, and slid the sealed envelope into an inside pocket. "It will be delivered, sir, without anybody else getting a look at it—not even the censors."
"Splendid, splendid!" murmured the senior officer almost absently. "That's the thing to do. Quite!"
A few moments later Dave and Freddy were in the bomber and Squadron Leader Hixon was slowly opening up the engines to move the aircraft forward toward the take-off runway.
"All aboard, pal!" Dave called out cheerfully to Freddy Farmer. "A late breakfast in Newfoundland, lunch in the air on the way down the Canadian coast, and dinner in little old Manhattan! Boy, oh boy! And then sixty days of having fun!"
"Except when we have to make those blasted speeches for War Bonds!" Freddy Farmer growled out as a tag line.