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 VIII

Organization of Youth is rapidly growing up, a young crowd, too young to join it at first, is coming up; its “why-not-do-it-now?” spirit. So, as Gadsby stood in front of that big Municipal Auditorium (which that group, you know, had had built), Marian Hopkins, a small girl, in passing by, saw him, and said:—

“I think Branton Hills ought to buy a balloon.”

“Balloon? Balloon? What would this city do with a balloon? Put a string on it so you could run around with it?”

“No, not that kind of a balloon, but that big, zooming kind that sails way up high, with a man in it.”

“Oh! Ha, ha! You think an air-craft is a balloon! But what would— Aha! An airport?”

“Uh-huh; but I didn’t know how to say it.”

“By cracky!” said His Honor. “I thought this town was about through improving. But an airport would add a bit to it; now wouldn’t it?”

Marian had a most profound opinion that it would; (if profound opinions grow in such small [ 78 ]