[Gutenberg 45182] • The Boy Aviators in Record Flight; Or, The Rival Aeroplane

The Boy Aviators in Record Flight - The Rival Aeroplane by John Henry Goldfrap

“Phew!” exclaimed Billy Barnes as he reported for work on the New York Planet one broiling afternoon in late August, “this is a scorcher and no mistake.”

“I should think after all your marvelous adventures with the Boy Aviators that you would be so used to heat and cold and hardship that you wouldn’t kick at a little thing like a warm day.”

The remark came from a young fellow about twenty-one years old who occupied a desk beside that of the stout spectacled youth of eighteen whom our readers have already met as Billy Barnes.

“Why, hullo, Fred Reade!” said Billy, looking up with a good-natured grin from the operation of opening his typewriter desk, “I thought you were off covering aviation.”

“I was,” rejoined the other, with a near approach to a sneer, “but since we printed your story about the recovery of the treasure on the Spanish galleon I guess they think I’m not good enough to cover the subject.”

If the good-natured Billy Barnes noticed the close approach to outspoken enmity with which these words were spoken he gave no sign of it. Any reply he might have made was in fact cut short at that minute by an office boy who approached him.

“Mr. Stowe wants to see you, Mr. Barnes, at once, please,” said the lad.

“There you go, the managing editor sending for you as soon as you get back. I wish I was a pet,” sneered Reade as Billy hastened after the boy and the next minute entered a room screened off from the editorial department by a glass door bearing the words “Managing Editor.”

At a desk above which hung “This is my busy day,” and other signs not calculated to urge visitors to become conversational, sat a heavy-set, clean-shaven man with a big pair of spectacles astride his nose. He had a fat cigar in his mouth which he regarded as he spoke with far more intensity than he did Billy.