Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/158

 o' flights upstairs, and the higher you got, the hotter, which don't seem like such a fool conclusion after all.

"Well, to go back to our muttonhead, Ikey—what should he do but get to feeling his oats and forget all the advice his dad gave him? He started right off to skylarking; the wax melted and down flopped Ikey into the sea. No sharks in those waters, it seems, for the old man planed down, fished out all that was left of Ikey's ambitions and buried it, and then went on his way and made an eggshell landing in Sicily.

"It's the same old story with flyers learning these days. Most of the smash-ups in the early part of the war were caused by young smart Alecks thinking they knew it all on the first jump-off. Take that in and think it over good and hard. Even after you graduate at college, you have hardly begun your education."

"What's the use of starting, then?" demanded Cat.

Turner glanced sharply at the boy.

"Because if you don't and, unless you keep on plugging, you'll degenerate into a big,