“Oh, get out!” snapped Cranny.
“Have an aeroplane?” Dick was saying, with an eager note in his tone. “That’s so, Bob—flying is one o’ the few things the Ramblers haven’t done yet. Say, if we only could——”
“A nice idea,” drawled Dave Brandon, smiling. “Theoretically, I’ve been up a number of times, and come down to earth with a bang.”
“Been the real thing, I’ll bet you would have bored a hole clean through to China,” remarked Willie, calmly. “Guess the grass never grows again on any spot where you happen to fall.”
The stout boy good-naturedly joined in the storm of merriment.
After dinner the party adjourned to the drawing-room, where the conversation continued to flow with uninterrupted vigor.
Cranny, his face aglow with pleasure, presently wandered over to Willie.
“That kid’ll surely want to go the worst kind o’ way, after hearing all this talk,” he reflected. “Maybe it isn’t too late yet.”
“Say, Willie,” he said, in an aside, “changed your mind, haven’t you? Don’t you think it would be the greatest sport ever, at Circle T? Come now, tell dad you’re right in for it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” responded Willie, indifferently. “I never go in much for those exciting stunts. Say, Cran, is China really right beneath us?”