Forty-eight hours after Phineas Pinkham had returned from his momentous bat patrol adventure, a new flyer reported for duty at the drome of the Ninth Pursuit Squadron. He announced to Major Rufus Garrity that Lieutenant Clarence Devine was reporting for duty. A few moments after that formality was dispensed with, the C.O. brought the newcomer to the mess to introduce him around. When he shoved out his hand toward Phineas his overly handsome pan lighted up like that of a cat that spots a mouse slowed up by arthritis. But the smile did not fool Phineas one iota. He held out his own hand and Devine gripped it. The next second the newcomer started to yowl and began to imitate a man who has pulled on a pair of pants filled with angry hornets.
\n\u201cHaw-w-w-w-w!\u201d Phineas erupted. \u201cIt\u2019s only a buzzer, Clarence. Sit down an\u2019 manjay. That\u2019s Frog language for puttin\u2019 on the nose bag.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t like your face, Pinkham!\u201d Clarence Devine snorted. \u201cI don\u2019t like anything about you.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, I ain\u2019t exactly been standin\u2019 here plannin\u2019 to kiss you, either,\u201d the scion of the Pinkhams retorted. \u201cHuh, you ain\u2019t got no sense of humor, Clarence.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s enough out of you!\u201d Garrity roared at him. \u201cLieutenant, pay no attention to Pinkham. You\u2019re here to fly\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cIf you can make a pilot out of that nasturtium,\u201d Phineas sneered elaborately, \u201cthen you could knit a doily with barbed-wire an\u2019 a couple of crowbars. Haw-w-w-w!\u201d
\nThereupon, Clarence and Phineas reached for each other, and it took the combined efforts of Captain Howell, Lieutenant Gillis, and a few other pilots, to keep the two from a fist fest. Finally, the wonder man from Iowa stepped toward the door, \u201cWon\u2019t let us fight, huh? It\u2019s gittin\u2019 to be a sissy squadron, if you ask me. I\u2019ll see you around, though, won\u2019t I, Clarence?\u201d he called back over his shoulder. \u201cYou\u2019re simpully gor-r-rge-eous. Adoo for now.\u201d
\nLieutenant Pinkham then went to his Nisson hut to think things over. He knew as well as he knew his mother\u2019s first name that Clarence Devine had been sent to Bar-le-Duc by the Intelligence Corps. Clarence would keep his eyes on Lieutenant Pinkham on the ground and in the air. This was a pretty pickle, Phineas decided, what with an old Frog citizen near Souilly ready to pay plenty of francs for a bundle of marks.
\nThe Boonetown magician taxed his mental equipment to the limit and finally gleaned an idea from its whirring mechanism. Inside of half an hour he was on a motorcycle en route to Bar-leDuc. When he arrived in the Frog metropolis, he parked the machine in an areaway and waited in the dark. Ten minutes later the squadron car pulled up in front of an estaminet that was well patronized by members of the Ninth. Out of the car tumbled three pilots, one of them Clarence Devine. Phineas strolled out into the light and, whistling a popular air, minced toward the domicile of his light of love, Babette.
\nOnce closeted with his fair lady, Phineas asked if rats had been prevalent in her cellar of late. Babette admitted that they had.
\n\u201cOui, Pheenyas, beegair an\u2019 beegair zey get lak les chats. Zey chase ze what you call tommychat out from ze maison. I have eet ze very beeg strong traps, aussi.\u201d
\n\u201cThat is all I want to know, cherry,\u201d Phineas grinned, giving her a bunny hug. \u201cI want to borrow one of ze rat traps, comprenny? That is trez good, Babette,\u201d he said as she handed him the spring steel device. \u201cAnd now if voose avez ze grub, I weel manjay. See swar at the mess I lost ze appetite, oui.\u201d
\nAn hour later Phineas emerged from Babette\u2019s house. Twenty minutes after that Clarence and a couple of M.P.\u2019s searched the place. Lieutenant Devine burst forth with a scratched prop boss and a lump on his noggin as big as a croquet ball. But he had no other marks. Meanwhile Phineas Pinkham was out beyond Bar-le-Duc in a sheep pasture that he had often used as an emergency landing field. He was busily occupied near a hollow tree for fully fifteen minutes.
\nThen on the way back to the drome he passed the squadron car which was standing beside the road with a flat tire.
\n\u201cBong sour, boys!\u201d Phineas tossed out cheerily in passing. \u201cHow was Babette\u2019s throwing arm, huh, Clarence? Two flat tires!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forty-eight hours after Phineas Pinkham had returned from his momentous bat patrol adventure, a new flyer reported for duty at the drome of the Ninth Pursuit Squadron. He announced to Major Rufus Garrity that Lieutenant Clarence Devine was reporting for duty. A few moments after that formality was dispensed with, the C.O. brought the newcomer…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51],"class_list":["post-679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pulp-classics","tag-joe-archibald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1322,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679\/revisions\/1322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/astoundingoutpost.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}