Page:Air Service Boys Flying for France.djvu/54

Rh submersible waiting to shoot a torpedo at the unprotected side of the steamer.

"I never had any girl puzzle me as much as Bessie Gleason does, and that's a fact, Tom," Jack remarked thoughtfully.

"What do you mean by that remark?" demanded the other, looking at him with sudden interest.

"Why, she changes all of a sudden from a fit of merriment, and becomes as sober as an old maid," explained Jack, as though he had been meditating over the matter for some time and could not reach any satisfactory explanation.

"Oh, that isn't so queer after all," chuckled Tom. "There are plenty aboard this boat who are afflicted with sudden losses of memory. I've had men talking to me lose the connection of what they were saying; and when I looked up it was to find them shading their eyes with a hand and staring hard ahead over the bows of the steamer, as if they felt a horrible suspicion that there was something like a stick standing up out of the water."

And then there's that man who she says is her legally-appointed guardian," continued Jack, shaking his head in bewilderment. "I confess I don't like him a little bit!"

"But you haven't even spoken with him, you told me yesterday," ventured Tom.