Page:Edgar Wallace--Tam o the Scoots.djvu/192

 and she waved her handkerchief frantically.

"A friend of yours?" asked the superintendent with ominous politeness.

"Ye-es—it's Tam, Mrs. Crane—I ran into him—he ran into me yesterday—"

"Tam?" even the severe superintendent was interested, "that remarkable man—I should like to see him. Everybody is talking about him just now. Was it a private letter or an official message from the aerodrome?"

"It was private," said the girl, very pink and a note of defiance in her voice, and the superintendent very wisely dropped the subject.

"I really don't know how to send him an appropriate answer," said Vera to her confidante and room-mate that evening. "I can't write poetry and I can't fly."

"I shouldn't answer it," said her sensible friend briskly. "After all, my dear, you don't want to start a flirtation with a sergeant—I mean, it's hardly the thing, is it?"