Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/163

 lively fun till the airplane made it look just about as lively as croquet."

"I've been up in one," announced Cat, proudly, "because the old man bought some liberty bonds during the war and he let me have the lift in one of those army baskets he was entitled to for buying them."

"You've been up in pretty much everything," laughed Turner. "It's about time you were going down in a coal shaft to see what the other direction looks like. But you haven't been up to the moon yet, like Hans Phaal in that balloon trip that wild-eyed Edgar Allan Poe wrote about. Bunk, but pretty entertaining bunk. Then, too, he wrote a hoax about a balloon crossing the Atlantic that took in a lot of suckers when it came out in the New York Sun. He was quite a bird at slinging fake scientific bunco." "Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore, put in Jimmy, rejoicing in his acquaintance with the author.

Nevermore' is right," assented Turner, "and this raven here is going to his downy, and you've got to, too, if I have to drum your