"Oh, a little private panic that Norton Plummer is indulgin' in," says I. "Nothin' to get fidgety over. I'll be back soon."
"But—but you won't be reckless, will you, Torchy?" she asks.
"Who, me?" says I. "How foolish. Why, I invented that 'Safety First' motto, and side-steppin' trouble is the easiest thing I do. Trust me."
I expect she was some nervous, at that. But she's a good sport, Vee.
"If you're needed," says she, "of course I want you to go. But do be careful."
I didn't need any coaxin'. Somehow, I never could get used to roamin' around in the country after dark. Always seemed sort of spooky. Bein' brought up in the city, I expect, where the scenery is illuminated constant, accounts for that. So, as I slips out the front gate and down towards the station, I keeps in the middle of the road and glances suspicious at the tree shadows.
Not that I was takin' Plummer's Hun scare real serious. He'd had a bad case of spy fever recent. Why, only last week he got all stirred up over what he announced was a private wireless outfit that he'd discovered somewhere in the outskirts of Flushing; and when they came to trail it down it turns out to be some new wire clothes-line strung up back of a flat buildin'.
Besides, what would an escaped German naval officer be doin' up this way? He'd be more apt to strike for Mexico, wouldn't he? Still, long as I'd let Plummer put me on the committee, it was up to me to answer any calls. Might be entertainin' to see who he'd mistaken for an enemy alien this time. And if all I was expected to do was spill a little impromptu strategy—well, maybe I could, and then again maybe I couldn't. I'd take a look, anyway.
It was seein' a light in Danny Shea's little cottage, back on a side lane, that gave me my original hunch. Danny is one of the important officials of the Long Island Railroad, if you let him tell it. He's the flagman down where the highway and trolley line cross the tracks at grade, and when his rheumatism ain't makin' him grouchy he's more or less amusin' to chin with.
Danny had pestered the section boss until he'd got him to build a little square coop for him, there by the crossin'—a place where he could crawl in between trains, smoke his pipe, and toast himself over a sheet-iron stove about as big as a picnic coffee-pot.