Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/33

 me just yet, or my calling on them, rather. By the way, which of you kids is a shark on mathematics?"

"I pass," Cat hastened to proclaim—an announcement that he had occasion to regret later. "I flunked on that Pons Asinorum, and I've never understood a thing about Geometry since. You flunked, too, Jimmy. Old Whiskers got red in the face trying to rub it into our heads, didn't he?"

Whiskers, so called because of his sideburns, was the lads' teacher in High School, and the pupils had facetiously dubbed the rawboned nag on which he solemnly took his exercise after school hours, "Hypotenuse."

"I swear I b'lieve Hypo knows a lot more math, than I do," conceded Jimmy, "just from old Whiskers bouncing up and down on him."

This drew a laugh from all the boys, in which Hardy joined after being informed of the nature and constitution of Hypotenuse.

"Here's your shark," continued Jimmy, pulling Legs forward. "He's wading into Trig, and eating it up. All his sense is not in his feet, though you might think so."