The Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril/Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXIII
EXIT THE SEABOARD AIRLINE PATROL
Some hours later, the Hatton motor was waiting for its three passengers at the end of the road by the sea. Brisk as bees and as noisy as a brass band, the youngsters had been stirring around packing up their shark's teeth and other mementoes. This occupation was interrupted by Hardy with a proposition that met with loud approval.
"Stop just one minute. We've got to have a small-sized ten minute jamboree before you boys go, with a pledge and promise you'll come again for a rest cure, just fishing and swimming and such quiet parlor sports. I'll promise your parents to have every villain exterminated from the county."
"Just keep one or two loose," suggested Cat with a grin. "We don't want to go stale."
"You'd go something worse than that with a few more nights like that wild one we managed to live through. But here comes Luke with the cakes and ginger ale for a fast pledge and promise."
With a whoop the scouts crowded around the refreshments, and, glasses in hand, listened to an announcement from Hardy: "Last night to soothe myself, so I could get to sleep after all the excitement, I scribbled off some little verses which are appropriate to each of the three young Scoutlets toasted—You get what I mean, I hope," he interrupted with a laugh, "You'll find them highly complimentary. Now here's to Miller first":
With great applause all glasses were raised.
"Here's to Cat Miller, a taking young fellow,
He never gets blue and rarely shows yellow;
He flies in the sky and he dives in the ocean,
And flirts with a shark when struck by the notion.
He craftily trails on a crook in the night,
But yells like a wildcat when faced by a light."
"Pretty tough on a brave scout," declared Cat, pretending indignation, while the other two applauded vociferously.
"You get off easy in this Knockers' Club," asserted Hardy. "Listen at this. Glasses up!
"Now the next of this gang that the poet will chat on,
Is a fellow who's known for keeping his Hatt-on;
In meat, he is rich and in brains he is rare,
And, as to his legs, he has nothing to spare;
He has aeroed by day and motored by night,
Though everyone saw he was pallid with fright."
This brought whoops from Cat and Jimmy and a slightly pained look from the sensitive Legs.
"Cheer up, Legs, and listen to the dose Jimmy gets:
"Now here's to that bold young adventurer Jimmy,
Though he's long on his tongue he can't be called limby;
The wind and the waves had to give him a wide row,
When he jumped over Herring one night in a hydro;
And now, meeting people, he tries hard to stuff 'em,
By claiming he's rescued a sailor named Buffum."
Jimmy here got all that was coming to him from his two chums, and the ginger-ale went its way merrily.
"Now, look here, fellows," exhorted Hardy, "Hope you didn't take that seriously? I meant just the opposite, didn't I, Turner? You're the swellest lot of chaps I know, but I just wanted to see how you'd take a little merry knocking. You've got to take a lot of it later, and maybe it's a good thing to keep chaps from getting the swell-head. You know some freshmen in college have to be taken down a peg for their own good. Get me?"
The boys took the lesson in good part, and the jollity went on till the refreshments were exhausted. Then the lads were off to get their packs in final trim.
Jimmy was the first to finish and make his appearance. He took his seat at the table and began to scribble, when Turner, who had been chatting with Hardy on the porch, came in.
"Look here, Jimmy," he asked, "just a little curiosity on my part, but, if I swear not to let it out, can't you tell me what shut Cat Miller up so quick the other day when he thought he had the joke on you about the whales' egg?"
"Sure I'll tell you if you won't give it away," said Jimmy, looking up slyly from his paper. "You see, Cat's people didn't move to Newport News till he was about seven years old. Well, I ran across a fellow at the Springs from the town Cat lived in before and he let it out that Cat's mother used to call him 'Buttercup' when he was a baby and kept on calling him that till he was about seven, and then they christened him Alonzo. Wouldn't that jar you? So when Cat tries any monkey business on me, I just buzz 'Buttercup' in his ear, and he shuts up like a clam. 'Course I'm not going to squeal on him, but it don't hurt to have some ammunition handy to make your friends behave, does it?"
"You're sure right," laughed Turner. "Buttercup! If that ain't a rich one! Butternut, I'll say. It sure is one rich handle to a modest mug. Don't worry, I'll keep it tight."
He went off chuckling to himself, and, for the next week every time Cat's face rose in his mind and he thought of the endearing name, he chuckled again.
A few minutes later when Cat and Legs came bounding down the stairway swinging their knapsacks, they found Jimmy still engaged with the paper.
"All ready for the home run," shouted Cat, grabbing at the writer's collar. "Come on, Jimmy! Eh, what you doing there? Writing a letter to the shark's grandma to tell her about her grandson's funeral?"
"One second, " insisted the "writer, as he added a final word to his composition. "Listen to this," he added, rising and holding the sheet of paper out in front of him.
"Golly, it's some of that limber Rick stuff," noted Legs, peeping over.
"We sure are getting poetry showers to-day. Sing on, oh muse!" Cat baited him.
"Shut up, listen," demanded Jimmy, "and then I'm with you—
"The Seaboard Airline Patrol
Has rescued a yacht from a shoal;
It has swatted a shark;
Winged a crook, on a lark,
And copped a Chief's bones in a hole."
"That's not rough on you like Hardy's stuff," approved Cat. "We'll send that to the paper for that write-up. Now, for home, boy, home and glory!"
And a few minutes later, the three merry scouts were having a hilarious time of it in the motor speeding homeward.
THE END