kin'
that rot! What you want to do is to go up for a short sail if you can,
forget to try any Hamilton stunts, and then beat it back to collect that
five thousand while the collectin's good. Say, when do you try her
again?"

"At daylight to-morrow morning," says he.

"Gee!" says I. "I've got a notion to stick around and watch how you come
out."

"No, don't," says he. "I--I'll let you know. Yes, honest I will.
Goodnight and--good-by." He kept his word as well as he could, too. The
postmark on the card was six A.M.; but I guess it must have been dropped
in the box earlier than that. All it says is:

Twenty gallons in the tank, and I'm off at four o'clock. I shall go
straight out to sea and then up, up. I've never been much good; but
I mean to finish in style. T. T.

Now, what would you say to a batty proposition like that? I couldn't
tell whether it was a bluff, or what. And I waits four days before I had
the nerve to go and see.

Sister says she ain't seen him since last Monday. And there was no flyer
in the shed. Nobody around the place knew what had become of it, either.

Well, it's been two weeks since I got that postal. What do I think? Say,
honest, I don't dare. But at night, when I'm tryin' to get to sleep, I
can see Tink, sittin' in between all them wires and things, with the
wheel in his hand, and them big eyes of his gazin' down calm and
satisfied, down, down, down, and him ready to take that one last dip to
the finish. And, say, about then I pull the sheets up over my eyes and
shiver.

"Piddie," says I, "you got more sense than you look to have. Anyway, you
know when to sidestep the nutty ones, don't you?"

CHAPTER XVIII

GETTING HERMES ON THE BOUNCE

Anybody might of thought, to see me sittin' there in the Ellins lib'ry,
leanin' back luxurious in a big red leather chair lookin' over the
latest magazines, that I'd been promoted from head office boy to heir
apparent or something like that. I expect some kids would have stood on
one leg in the front hall and held their breath; but why not make
yourself to home when you get the chance? I knew the boss was takin' his
time goin' through all them papers I'd brought up, and that when he
finished he'd send down word if there was any instructions to go back.

That's how I come to get the benefit of all this mushy conversation that
begins to drift out from the next room. First off I couldn't make out
whether it was some one havin' a