Lieutenant
Beverly did not show any great liking for them; but he was a Northerner,
brought up on baking-powder biscuits, so the others could understand his
want of appreciation.
Taken all in all, they certainly enjoyed that first bite ashore after the
completion of their memorable flight across the Atlantic.
Jack, so Tom said, seemed to think it was a sort of celebration because
of the event, for his face was wreathed in a perpetual smile.
"The sort of smile," Jack retorted, "that won't come off."
"Oh, how good I do feel!" was a remark that if he made it once he did a
dozen times, always finding it greeted by answering nods on the part of
his two companions.
Of course they told the farmer they were aviators who had had the
misfortune to drop into the marsh, where he would find their plane.
Beverly hired him to dismantle this in part, and store it away in his
shed until later on it could be called for in person. He was not to
deliver it to any person without the presence of one of the trio.
When he started out to drive them in his old rickety vehicle to the
nearest railroad station, miles distant, he was almost stricken dumb
because Beverly, in the fulness of his gratitude over their marvelous
escape, thrust a full hundred dollars upon him, with a promise of a like
amount later on for looking after the abandoned bombing plane.
"To-day is marked with a white stone in the life of Farmer Jenkins,
believe me," Jack whispered aside to Tom, as they saw the amazed look
spreading over the man's weather-beaten face.
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