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It was the details of this scheme that he'd been tryin' to work off on me for weeks, but I'd kept duckin', until finally I'd agreed to let him spill it across the luncheon table. "It's got to be a swell feed, though, Hartley," I insists as I joins him out at the express elevator. "Will the Café l'Europe do?" he asks. "Gee!" says I. "So that's why you 're dolled up in the Sunday uniform, eh?
Some perfect stranger it is, who does the reverse goose step so unexpected that there's no duckin' a collision. Quite a substantial party he is, too, and where my nose connects with his shoulder he's built about as solid as a concrete pillar.
"'They told us, he says again, plaintive-like, feelin' for his spectacles an' not finding 'em, 'that Penzance was the next stop. "'Bound for Penzance, was you? I asks. "'For the Land's End, says he, his teeth chatterin'. I set it down the man had a stammer, but 'twas only the shock an' the chill of his duckin'.
This same somebody whispers that I know so much about ducks that I quack when I talk, and he comes cruisin' over in the buzz cart to hire me for guide. And would you b'lieve it? it turns out that he's cal'latin' to make his duckin' v'yage in that very cart. I was for makin' the trip in a boat, like a sensible man, but he wouldn't hear of it.
You see, that stick was growin' shorter all the time. It ain't as easy as you think. The panther'd slack back an' hunch down an' spit, an' it was mighty lively in duckin' the stick. An' you never knowed when it'd jump. It was caught by the hind leg, which was curious, too, an' it had some slack I'm tellin' you.
The first living object on which their eyes rested was Brindle, lying on the ground and chewing her cud with an air of contentment which belongs exclusively to her kind, or rather kine. The boys laughed and Terry said: "If she had such a thing as conscience she wouldn't be takin' things in that aisy style, after givin' us a duckin' that come nigh bein' our last one."
You see," the boy went on hurriedly, as though fearful lest his courage might fail him before he got the whole thing off his mind, "we'd tried to smoke you out and made a botch of the trick; and I even pushed Bluff over into the lake this afternoon, to get him a duckin', 'cause the temptation was too great But it's all up with me now.
"I will break his head upon his shoulthers av he puts hand on me," sez I. "I will give him the lie av he says that I'm dhirty, an' I wud not mind duckin' him in the Artillery troughs if ut was not that I'm thryin' for my shtripes." "Is that all ye will do?" sez another. "Have ye no more spunk than that, ye blood-dhrawn calf?"
Another kidnaping scheme afloat?" "No not that I know of. Ain't you the guy that fixed us? Say, on the dead, I was goin' to do the right thing by her that night. I was duckin' the gang when you slugged me. Honest, mister, I was goin' to put her friends next. Say, I don't know how bad I'm hurt, but if I ever git to trial, do what you can fer me, boss. On the dead, I was her friend."
It's not a bit o' use." They turned to go back. "Well, the duckin' will be good for Potts' parki, anyhow," said the Boy in an angry and unsteady voice. "What do you mean?" "When he asked me to hand it to him I nearly stuck fast to it. It's all over syrup; and we don't wear furs at our meals." "Tchah!" The Colonel stopped with a face of loathing.
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