“Let’s go have a look at it,” suggested Dick.
“Don’t!” Sandy spoke sharply. “Don’t go in there!”
Larry and Dick straightened and stared in surprise. It was very plain to be seen that Sandy was not joking.
“Why?” asked Larry, in his practical way.
“Think back,” said Sandy. “When school vacations started and we began to stay around the new Floyd Bennett airport that had opened on Barren Island, Jeff had his ‘crate’ there to take people around the sky for short sight-seeing hops, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” admitted Larry, “and we got to be friendly because we are crazy to be around airplanes and pilots, and Jeff let us be ‘grease monkeys’ and help him get passengers, too.”
“Surely he did! But when we brought them to go up with him, did he take their money and fly them around, the way others did? Or——”
“No,” Dick admitted. “He generally had something wrong with the crate, or the wind was too high, or he had stubbed his left foot and met a cross-eyed girl, or saw a funeral passing, and thought something unlucky might happen from those signs.”
“Do you really believe anybody can be as superstitious as Jeff tries to make us believe he is?”
“Yes. Lots of pilots are—they think an accident will happen if anybody wears flowers in their ‘planes——”