Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/77

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At Cape Peril
75

lost her senses; an' they're a-achin' to-day sorter, an' thar ain't no tellin' what's comin' tomorrow."

"Then maybe we'll get some breakers to ride," said Cat enthusiastically, with the secret hope that the prophetic ache would continue. "But, Cap'n Buffum, tell us about some of your sea experiences. You must have had some hot ones."

"When I fust knowed the sea," proceeded the Cap'n without further urging, "them was times, them was. But I give her up because all the old windjammers was gone an' the old style steamers, an* I didn't have no taste for these new bilers and en-jines they run 'em with these days. An' I'm glad I give it up, lads, befo' them submarines sneakin' round underneath the water and things sailin' overhead had plumb spiled the sea. These hyuh inventors has plumb sp'iled it, and, as fer seamanship these days, 'tain't nothin' in it no longer.

"'Twar many a year ago I read that yarn Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and says I to myself, says I, the Frenchman that wrote that ain't safe aboveboard. Then come