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Read Ebook: On a Torn-Away World; Or the Captives of the Great Earthquake by Rockwood Roy
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Ebook has 1200 lines and 50299 words, and 24 pages
SHOT INTO THE AIR
"Hurrah!" shouted Jack Darrow, flicking the final drops of lacquer from the paintbrush he had been using. "That's the last stroke. She's finished!"
"I guess we've done all we can to her before her trial trip," admitted his chum, Mark Sampson, but in a less confident tone.
"You don't see anything wrong with her, old croaker; do you?" demanded Jack, laughing as usual.
"'The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof; not in chewing the pudding bag string'," quoted Mark, still with a serious countenance.
The sliding door of the hangar opened just behind the two boys and a black face appeared.
"Is eeder ob you boys seen ma Shanghai rooster?" queried the black man, plaintively. "I suah can't fin' him nowhars."
"What did you let him out of his coop for?" demanded Mark. "You're always bothering us about that rooster, Washington. He is as elusive as the Fourth Dimension."
"I dunno wot dat fourth condension is, Massa Mark; but dat rooster is suah some conclusive. When I lets him out fo' an airin' he hikes right straight fo' some farmer's hen-yard, an' den I haster hunt fo' him."
"When you see him starting on his rambles, Wash, why don't you call him back?" demanded Jack Darrow, chuckling. "If I did, Massa Jack, I'spect he wouldn't know I was a-hollerin' fo' him."
"How's that? Doesn't he know his name?"
"I don't fo' suah know wedder he does or not," returned the darkey, scratching his head "Ye see, it's a suah 'nuff longitudinous name, an' I dunno wedder he remembers it all, or not."
"He's got a bad memory; has he?" said Mark, turning to smile at Washington White, too, for Professor Henderson's old servant usually afforded the boys much amusement.
"Dunno 'bout his memory," grunted Wash; "he's gotter good forgettery, suah 'nuff. Leastways, when he starts off on one o' dese perambulationaries ob his, he fergits ter come back."
With a perfectly serious face the darkey declaimed:
"Christopher Columbus Amerigo Vespucci George Washington Abraham Lincoln Ulysses Grant Garibaldi Thomas Edison Guglielmo Marconi Butts."
"For goodness sake! Will you listen to that!" gasped Mark, while Jack went off into a roar of laughter.
"Don't--don't it make your jaw ache to say it, Wash?" cried the older lad when he could speak.
"Not a-tall! not a-tall!" rejoined the darkey, shaking his woolly head. "I has practised all ma life speakin' de berry longest words in de English language--"
"And mispronouncing them," giggled Jack.
"Mebbe, Massa Jack, mebbe!" agreed Washington, briskly. "But de copy book say dat it is better to have tried an' failed dan nebber to have tried at all."
"And did you ever try calling the rooster back, when he starts to play truant, with all that mouthful of words?" queried the amused Mark.
"Yes, indeedy," said Washington, seriously.
"Don't he mind, then?"
"I should think he'd be struck motionless in his tracks," chuckled Jack.
"No, sah," said Washington. "Dat's de only fault I kin fin' with dat name--it don't 'pear to stop him. An' befo' I kin git it all out he's ginerally out ob sight!"
That sent both boys off into another paroxysm of laughter. Meanwhile the darkey had come into the great shed and was slowly walking around the flying machine. "What do you think of her, Wash, now that she's finished?" asked Mark.
"Is she done done?" queried the darkey, wonderingly.
"She certainly is," agreed Jack.
"De chile is bawn and done named Nebbercudsneezer, heh? Well! well!"
"Lawsy me! don't see how I kin!" stammered Washington White, who always wished to be considered very brave, but who was really as timid as a hare. "Yo' see, Massa Mark, I'spect I shall be right busy."
"What will you be busy at?" demanded Jack.
"Well--well, sah," said Wash, "if dat Shanghai don't come back befo', I shall hab ter go snoopin' aroun' de kentry a-huntin' fo' him. He'll be crowin' 'bout sun-up, an' he suah can't disguise his crow."
"If Andy was here, he would surely want to go with us," declared Jack to Mark. "Andy Sudds isn't afraid of anything."
"Pshaw!" said Mark. "That rooster is so fat he couldn't fly high, anyway."
"And 'flowed' is a mighty good word, Wash," chuckled Jack. "Ah! here is the professor, Mark."
Professor Henderson was an aged man with snow white hair and beard. Although he was not physically as strong as he once was, his brain and energy were not in the least impaired by advancing years. He had taken the two lads, Jack Darrow and Mark Sampson, both orphans, under his care some years before, and under his tuition and by his aid they were much farther advanced in knowledge of the practical sciences than other boys of their age.
The professor welcomed them cordially and at their request gave a thorough scrutiny to the various mechanical contrivances that went to the make-up of the flying machine. He pronounced it, as far as could be known before a practical test, a perfect mechanism.
"And we will try it to-morrow morning, boys," he said, with almost as much enthusiasm as Jack and Mark themselves displayed. "You have completed the machine in excellent time, and I 'un likewise ready to make the experiment."
"What experiment, Professor?" asked the boys in chorus.
"Haven't you noticed what I was tinkering on at the other end of the shop?" queried Professor Henderson, in surprise.
"Why, I see that you have a long steel plank there, with some kind of a compressed air contrivance at one end," said Jack.
"Is that what you mean, Professor?" queried Mark.
"That, boys," said the scientist, with some pride, "is a modern catapult--an up-to-the-minute catapult which, had it been known to the ancients, would have enabled the hosts of Joshua, for instance, to batter down the walls of Jericho without the trouble of marching so many times around the city."
"Great goodness, Professor!" cried Mark. "Is that practicable?"
"We'll know after we have tried it," retorted Professor Henderson, drily.
"How did you happen to start working on this catapult idea?" asked Jack.
"Well, I can't tell you everything," replied the inventor, "for it is partly a secret."
"Huh," laughed Mark. "You're mysterious. You haven't joined forces with some department of our government, or with another country?"
The professor smiled, thinking how keen this young man always proved himself to be.
"You've guessed it," he replied. "And I'm sorry I can't explain more to you."
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