CHAPTER XII
PUG KENNEDY
“Say, look here!” blustered Bob, when the conductor had passed on.“Just because I ask about the next station doesn’t mean that I want toeat _all_ the while.”
“You aren’t eating _all_ the while,” said Ned. “This is only the secondin a while since we started.”
“Well, I’m hungry!” declared the stout lad. “Maybe you are, too, onlyyou’re too proud to admit it.”
“I’m not!” declared Jerry. “Chunky, I second your motion, and I wish myjaws were in motion right now. I’ll be with you when the crullers nestagain!” he chanted.
“Who said pie?” demanded a voice at the end of the car.
“That bunch up in the middle,” answered another, indicating the motorboys.
“Is there any chance for a feed?” came a veritable howl from somehungry lad. “Tell me, oh, tell me, I implore!”
“Next stop,” answered Jerry. “That is,” and he turned to the sergeantin charge, “unless you have some rations concealed somewhere about yourperson,” and he laughed.
“Not a ration,” was the answer. “I suppose there ought to have beensome arrangement made for feeding you boys on the way, but there issuch a rush that it has been overlooked. However, if you are short ofchange----”
“Oh, we’ve got the _money_! All we want is _time_ to eat!” came the cry.
“I’ll see to that, then,” said Sergeant Mandell. “If necessary I’llhave the conductor hold the train for a minute or two, until you canraid the lunch counter. But mind! everything must be paid for, as I amresponsible.”
Ned, Bob, and Jerry, by common consent, were detailed into a foragingparty on behalf of some of their comrades and a common fund was made upwith which to purchase what food could be found. Then the boys eagerlywaited for the train to arrive at the station where there was a lunchcounter.
And such a rush as there was when the place was announced! The threemotor boys, as treasurers, were accompanied to the counter by a mob ofthe boys who for themselves or for companions had orders for everythingin sight.
“I want apple pie!”
“Cherry for mine!”
“Give me peach!”
“What’s the matter with the ‘peachy’ girl behind the counter?” askedsome one, and there were many glances of warm but respectful admirationcast at the young girl behind the piles of food on the marble shelf.
“Sandwiches--all you got!” demanded Jerry.
“And some crullers, if you haven’t enough pie!” added Bob. “I want a_lot_ of crullers. You can put ’em in your pocket!” he confided to Ned.
“Put ’em in your pocket? Man, dear! I’m going to put _mine_ in my_stomach_!”
“Yes, I know. So’m I--most of ’em,” went on Chunky. “But you can stowaway some in your pockets to eat when you get hungry again. They don’tget as mushy as pie.”
“You’re the limit!” Ned told his chum. “You haven’t had a feed yet, andyou’re thinking of the next one. But go to it! I never felt so hungryin my life.” So Bob went to it, to the extent of stuffing his pocketswith crullers, and carrying away as much else as he could in his hands.
The girl at the lunch counter would have been swamped, but Jerryorganized a sort of helping corps, and dealt out the food to his fellowrecruits, making payment in due course, until the counter looked asfields do after a visit from the locusts.
Back to the car, only just in time, rushed the boys, bearing thingsto eat to those of their comrades who had remained in their seats, forsome were detailed to remain as a sort of guard over the luggage.
“Ah! This is something like!” exclaimed Bob, as he sat in his seat whenthe train had again started, holding a sandwich in each hand, while hispockets bulged suspiciously.
“You seem pretty well provided for,” remarked Ned to his stout chum, asthe three motor boys sat together again.
“Well, I don’t aim to starve if I can help it,” retorted Bob, as hemunched away.
“You must weigh five or six pounds more,” added Jerry, with a glance atBob’s pockets. “That’s dangerous business, old man!”
“What?” asked Bob, pausing half-way to a bite of his sandwich.
“Putting on weight like that. You must remember that you’re not morethan just tall enough to break in under the military requirements, andif you are too heavy for your height--out you go.”
“You can’t take away my appetite!” exclaimed Bob, but he did not seeNed wink at Jerry and motion with his head toward the bulging pocketsof the stout lad.
For a time there was a merry scene in the car, where the prospectivesoldiers were riding. Hungry appetites were being appeased, and thiscaused a line of small talk, which had rather died away after thefirst part of the journey.
Many of the lads were friends, and a number knew the motor boys, havinglived in Cresville. Others were from surrounding towns, and some ofthem Ned, Bob, and Jerry knew, or had heard about. Others were totalstrangers, and one or two seemed quite alone. These had come from smallvillages, where not more than one or two had volunteered. One such lad,who gave his name as Harry Blake, the motor boys made friends with, andshared their food with him, as he had not seen fit, for some reason orother, to get off and provide himself.
“Have you any particular branch of the service in view?” asked Jerry ofHarry, as he saw Ned and Bob jointly looking at a paper.
“I did hope to get in the aviation corps, but they tell me it’s prettyhard.”
“Hard to get in?”
“Well, yes, and hard to learn the rudiments of the game.”
“Oh, no, that isn’t exactly so,” Jerry answered. “Of course I don’tknow much about military aeroplanes, but my friends and I have beenoperating airships for some time. It’s comparatively easy, once you getover the natural fear. Though of course becoming an expert is anothermatter. I think you could soon learn. You look as though you werecool-headed.”
“No, I don’t get excited easily, but I don’t know beans about anairship. I’ve read a little; but the more I read the more I getconfused. I’d like to understand the principle.”
“Perhaps I can help you,” Jerry said. “I’ve got a book here onaeroplanes, and my friends and I have helped build some. I can give youa little book-knowledge for a starter.”
“I wish you would,” pleaded Harry, and then he and Jerry plunged into asubject that interested them both.
Meanwhile the train rushed on, carrying the recruits nearer to thetraining camp, or rather, to the city where they would be given a morecareful examination and separated into units, to be divided among thevarious cantonments where Uncle Sam was getting his new armies ready toface the Kaiser’s veterans.
Jerry had just finished telling Harry something about the way in whichthe 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--averitable wail of anguish.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ned, who had moved out of the seat besidehis stout chum, and was sitting back of him. “Did you bite yourtongue?”
“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’vejust 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 whenyou 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 gothungry, and now they’re gone,” and in proof Bob stood up and turnedboth coat pockets inside out.
“Yes, I see they’r
e empty,” observed Ned coolly. “But I haven’t got’em!”
“You have so!”
“Indeed I haven’t. Search me!” and Ned, with an air of injuredinnocence, stood up and extended his arms at either side, an invitationfor Bob to feel in his pockets. It was an invitation which thestout youth did not ignore, and he felt about Ned’s clothes withthoroughness, and convinced himself that the crullers were, as Ned haddeclared, not on his person.
“Well, you know where they are!” declared Bob.
“No, I don’t!”
“Jerry does, then!”
“What’s that?” asked the tall lad, looking up from his book onaeroplanes, which he and his new acquaintance were going over.
Bob explained, and Jerry’s denial was such that the stout lad feltinclined to accept it as final. Especially as he remembered that Jerryhad not been near him since the purchase of the food at the lunchcounter.
“Well, somebody’s got my crullers and I’m going to get ’em back!”exclaimed Bob. “I paid for ’em and I want ’em. A joke’s a joke, butthis is too much! Shell out, fellows!” and he looked around at thosenearest him.
The truth of the matter was that Ned had slyly slipped the bags ofcrullers out of the two side pockets of Bob’s coat, and had passedthem, surreptitiously to two fellow conspirators. And then, as is usualin such cases, the crullers had gone from hand to hand until, reachingthe far end of the car, they had been quickly eaten.
But Bob did not give up. Satisfied that Ned did not have the pastry onhis person, Bob set about a search for it. He walked down the aisle,looking in various seats, and poking his fingers in the pockets ofthose he knew, until he came to the end of the car.
In one of the seats sat a heavily-built youth, whose face was not of aprepossessing type. He had a sort of bulldog air about him, as though“spoiling for a fight,” and he had had little to say to the otherrecruits.
Bob, looking at the coat of this lad, as the garment was spread outover the unoccupied half of a seat, made a grab for something in one ofthe pockets, at the same time crying:
“Here they are! I knew you’d snitched ’em!” and he pulled out a bag,and drew therefrom a cruller.
The lad in the seat turned quickly from looking out the window, and,without a moment’s hesitation, sent his fist into Bob’s face.
“Maybe that’ll teach you to let Pug Kennedy’s things alone!” hegrowled.