Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/137

Rh Arthur Busybrain an Ellawillerwillies are getting off their chests this fine afternoon.

"'Shipwrecked!'" He whistled again. "'On island—about latitude, eighteen north'—Where the heck did you get this?"

"From the sea it came, señor, in the bottle."

"Your uncle Dudley wasn't born yesterday, so easy on your persiflage, old Flying Dutch."

"Si, si, señor," said the other earnestly, scenting the skepticism though not the expressions which conveyed it, "from the sea it came—in a bottle—I swear it, by all the saints, Santa Caterina de Sienna, an' San Agnolo de Padua, an''"

"Never mind your telephone directory of the Celestial Boulevards—h'mmm" he was reading it over—"'long, six two west, alive—well—notify Sally Fell— Salthaven'—is that burg on the map?"

He searched his pockets which were bulging with stub pencils, wads of clay-coloured copy paper, and time-tables, and selected one of the latter.

"For the luv of Pete, if it ain't! But ye gods! it's a hoax, a plant, surest thing you know. But what a lulu of a Sunday spread it'd make—three running, too! Perhaps it's a hunch, and I never overlooked one yet. So goodbye, vacation, and"—here he counted a rather slender roll, "twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, tuh, three—" he saluted the greenbacks with his lips, then turning to his new friend, shot at him,

"Are you on?"