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"You can push off at once!" said the officer at the desk. Of course I must have a pass, which was a duplicate in mimeograph with my name as passenger in place of "machine gunner;" or, to put it another way, I was one joy-rider who must be officially delivered from an aerodrome in England to an aerodrome in France. Youth laughed when I took that view. Had I ever flown before?
"We have come to summon help from the Westbury fire department," said Frank, "can you direct us to the headquarters?" "Sure, right up the street about six blocks." "Good. Is there any one on watch?" "Sure, some of the boys sleep there every night." "Is it a good engine?" "None better. She's an automobile engine. Goes sky-hooting 'long like a joy-rider. Just got her two weeks ago.
It is the only place I have been, except Long Key, where the omnipresent, hateful, and stinking automobile does not obtrude upon real content. Think of air not reeking with gasolene and a street safe to cross at any time! Safe, I mean, of course, from being run down by some joy-rider. You are liable to encounter one of the Loreleis or Aphrodites at any hour from five till sunset.
They were both distressed, these good soldiers, under the impression that they had led me into danger. As a matter of fact it was I who owed them an apology, since they had enough risks in the way of business without taking others in order to gratify the whim of a joy-rider. Barbariche and Clericetti, this record will convey to you my remorse. Our difficulties were by no means over.
First, he got the joy-rider into the parachute harness for such emergencies and over the side, then himself, both descending safely on the right side of the British trenches which was rather "smart work," as the British would say, but all to the taste of the one-armed pilot who was looking for adventures. I have counted thirty-three British sausage balloons within my range of vision from a hill.
A friend says: "The only time I dare be seen in my machine is between 11 A.M. and 4 P.M. Before that time people point me out as a 'joy-rider' returning from a night's debauch. After that time I am a 'joy-rider' bound for a night of it." The complaint rings true.
"That fellow hates formation flying like the devil hates holy water," Cowan answered. "He's a joy-rider. He knows how anxious I am to effect this move without a hitch, and he also knows there'll be no passes into Epernay to-night. I've a hunch Vitry looked good to him. I want you to find out." "Very well, sir."
Why wouldn't I want you? Anyhow," she exposed it, "father wants you. Father thinks you're so nice and respectable, Katie." "And so, for that matter," she added, "does my chosen joy-rider." "I'm not so sure of his being particularly impressed with my respectability," replied Katie. "He's always been quite dippy about you, Katie. I don't know how I ever got him."
One day the one-armed pilot was up with a "joy-rider"; that is, an officer who was not a regular aerial observer but was sight-seeing. The balloon suddenly broke loose with the wind blowing strong toward Berlin, which was a bit awkward, as he remarked, considering that he had an inexperienced passenger. "We mustn't let the Boches get us!" he said. "Look sharp and do as I say."
One hesitates to apply the term "joy-rider" to so eminent a leader of contemporary thought as the authoress of "The Dawn of Better Things," "Principles of Selection," and "What of To-morrow?" but candour compels the admission that she was a somewhat reckless driver. Perhaps it was due to some atavistic tendency.
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