“No, I don’t get excited easily, but I don’t know beans about an airship. I’ve read a little; but the more I read the more I get confused. I’d like to understand the principle.”
“Perhaps I can help you,” Jerry said. “I’ve got a book here on aeroplanes, and my friends and I have helped build some. I can give you a little book-knowledge for a starter.”
“I wish you would,” pleaded Harry, and then he and Jerry plunged into a subject that interested them both.
Meanwhile the train rushed on, carrying the recruits nearer to the training camp, or rather, to the city where they would be given a more careful examination and separated into units, to be divided among the various cantonments where Uncle Sam was getting his new armies ready to face the Kaiser’s veterans.
Jerry had just finished telling Harry something about the way in which the double rudders controlled an airship--one guiding it up or down, and the other to left or right, when there came a howl from Bob--a veritable wail of anguish.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ned, who had moved out of the seat beside his stout chum, and was sitting back of him. “Did you bite your tongue?”
“Bite my tongue? Come on! You know better than that. Hand ’em over!” and Bob, extending his fist, shook it under Ned’s nose.
“Hand what over? What do you mean? If you mean these magazines, I’ve just started ’em. Besides, they’re mine!”
“No, I don’t mean the magazines, and you know it!” declared Bob.
“Well, I’m sure I don’t know what you do mean. What’s the row, anyhow?”
“My crullers!” exclaimed Bob. “You snitched ’em out of my pocket when you were sitting in the same seat with me. Come on; a joke’s a joke, and I don’t mind if you keep one for yourself, and another for Jerry. But hand over the rest!”
“The rest of what?” asked Ned, innocently enough.
“Oh, quit! You know! My crullers. I bought ’em to eat when I got hungry, and now they’re gone,” and in proof Bob stood up and turned both coat pockets inside out.
“Yes, I see they’re empty,” observed Ned coolly. “But I haven’t got ’em!”
“Indeed I haven’t. Search me!” and Ned, with an air of injured innocence, stood up and extended his arms at either side, an invitation for Bob to feel in his pockets. It was an invitation which the stout youth did not ignore, and he felt about Ned’s clothes with thoroughness, and convinced himself that the crullers were, as Ned had declared, not on his person.