Freddy the Pilot

After General Grimm and his officers had gone, Uncle Ben took the bombsight down to the shop, and went to work to fix it so the bombs would hit what they were aimed at. And then Freddy got in the plane and flew down to Centerboro.

First he went to see Mr. Boomschmidt. “Could you start giving shows again tomorrow?” he asked. “I think I can fly well enough now to do something about that plane if he tries to break up the show. At least, I can get an idea where he comes from.”

“Comes from different directions,” said Mr. Boomschmidt, “but when he goes, he nearly always goes north.—Oh, my goodness, I almost forgot—Mr. Condiment is in town. Called on Rose last evening. He’s staying at the hotel.”

“I must have a look at him,” Freddy said. “Maybe I can figure out a way to get rid of him.”

“Oh please, no rough stuff!” said Mr. Boomschmidt anxiously. “He’d really have proof then that our animals were unmang—unmanj—oh, my gracious, you say it, Leo.”

“I don’t see how you do it, Leo,” said Mr. Boomschmidt admiringly. “Goodness, I can say ‘The black bug bled on the bare barn floor,’ and ‘She sells seashells,’ and all those tongue twisters, but this unmang—unmaggabubble … no, I can’t do it.”

“Well, don’t cry about it, chief,” said Leo. “There’s a lot of things you can do that I can’t do.”

“Why, standing on your head, for one. Remember, last Tuesday at Mr. Beller’s party you did it, and after we got home I tried it, and I’ve been trying ever since, but I just can’t get my hind legs up.”

“Really, Leo?” said Mr. Boomschmidt. “Now that’s very interesting. Now look.” He took off his plug hat and put it on the ground and then stood on his head. “See, Leo? Now if you just flip over quick …”

Freddy went back to his plane. He owned a great many different costumes which he used as disguises in his detective work, and he had decided to keep a couple in the plane, just so that if an important case came up he could hop into a disguise and take the trail before it got cold. He had a new disguise which had been given him by an old and rather dressy friend, Mrs. Winfield Church, and he thought he’d try it. It was a thin dress with big flowers on it, and high-heeled shoes, and a very broad-brimmed picture hat, with a veil. It was a sort of garden party outfit.

Freddy tapped along up Main Street in his high-heeled shoes, and a number of people turned to look at him, for he made really a very fashionable figure. Mr. Watt, the optician, standing at the door of his shop, said: “Some class, hey?” to Miss Peebles (Harriet—Hats; Latest Paris Creations); and Miss Peebles said: “Yes, indeed, a very fashionable turnout. I wonder who she is?”

Freddy went into the hotel, and the clerk bowed so low that he hit his nose on the counter. Then he sneezed and in answer to Freddy’s question said no, Mr. Condiment had gone out.

So Freddy went to look for him. He stopped in front of the Busy Bee Department Store and asked a sparrow who was sitting on the awning if he’d seen a thin, sour-faced stranger anywhere in town. The sparrow, who like most sparrows was always trying to be tough without much to do it with, said out of the corner of his beak: “Yeh, I seen the guy you want. He went in old Tweedle’s bookstore.” Then he slouched along the awning until he could see under the picture hat. “Boy oh boy!” he said. “If it isn’t our Freddy! Well, ain’t you the sweetie pie!” And he began to yell to the other sparrows to come look.

Freddy didn’t want to attract attention, so he hurried off to the bookstore. He had spent a great many hours in this store, and had bought a lot of books there. Mr. Tweedle was an old friend. He was rather a peculiar person. He never even looked up when a customer came into the store, and anybody that wanted to could stay there all day taking down books from the shelves and reading them. “I used to have a bell on the door,” he told Freddy, “but so many smart-alecky boys kept sticking their heads in and shouting: ‘Hey, Tweedledum, where’s Tweedledee!’ or some equally brilliant remark—well, I took it down.” The funny thing about him was that although everybody in town called him “old Mr. Tweedle,” he really wasn’t old at all, and didn’t look old. He explained that to Freddy. “Men that keep old bookstores are supposed to have long white beards and be covered with dust, just as college professors are supposed to be so absent-minded that they ought to be locked up, and army sergeants are supposed to be rough, tough men with jaws like flatirons. As a matter of fact most of these people aren’t like that at all. Why, if you’ll excuse me, Freddy—take pigs. They’re supposed to be stubborn, and dirty and lazy. But I don’t know any that are like that. Just the opposite, in fact.”

When Freddy entered the store, Mr. Tweedle was having an argument with a thin, sour-faced man. “My dear sir,” he was saying. “I don’t sell comics. You’re wasting your time.”

The other sniffed. “You’re wasting yours, running this kind of business. Bet you don’t get two customers a week. Put in a line of Condiment Comics and from the minute you open in the morning the place’ll be jammed, teeming, populous—I mean to say, crowded.” He pulled a sheaf of bright-colored comic books out of his pocket. “Brighten up the place,” he said.

“Look,” said Mr. Tweedle; “I consider the comics cheap and silly, and I’m not going to sell my customers cheap and silly stuff.”

“Then half the people in the country ought to go back and start all over again in the second grade,” said Mr. Tweedle.

Freddy gave what he considered a ladylike cough, and when they turned to look at him he came forward and said in a high affected voice with what he fancied to be a Spanish accent: “Oh, those delightful comicals! I see you have new ones. I may look, no?”

Mr. Tweedle shrugged and turned and went into the back of the store. But Mr. Condiment squeezed his face into what was meant to be a smile, and said: “Of course, madam. Delighted, I’m sure; charmed, very happy—in short, greatly pleased. These—I publish them myself; you see my name here: Watson P. Condiment—these are the funny ones, Chirpy Cheebles, about a bird, you see—very amusing. And these are the horrible ones: Lorna, the Leopard Woman, In the Lair of the Great Serpent, The Secret of Grisly Gulch—all very grim, ghastly, shocking—in short, revolting.”

“How lovely!” said Freddy, taking them. “The Great Serpent—Ah, si! Is he not cute? He just goes to bite that little boy in two. Oh, and see thees demon woman! Is living in Grisly Gulch, no? Oh, oh, see—she has horns! And two little boys she is eating!”

It was lucky that Freddy had on a veil, for he had noticed something in the back of the store and he couldn’t keep his face straight—it kept spreading into a broad grin. For what he had noticed was Willy, the boa constrictor from the circus, curled up in an armchair by Mr. Tweedle’s desk. At least he was partly in the chair, which wasn’t large enough to hold all of him; four or five feet trailed off on the floor.

Willy was a rather unusual snake, for he was fond of reading. Snakes don’t usually care much about books, probably because they haven’t any hands to hold them with. But Mr. Tweedle had a sort of reading stand on his desk, and if he propped a book up on it, Willy could turn the leaves with his nose. He had spent many happy hours here when the circus was in town. He was particularly fond of poetry. That too is rather unusual in a snake.

Freddy turned a page. “Ay, mi alma!” he exclaimed, and then speaking in a good loud voice: “What a so dreadful creature! Indeed, how terrible to see a great serpent like that rear up beside you!” He held out the picture and then began to peer fearfully under counters and into dark corners. “Ah, Señor, think what might lurk in such darknesses! Then the springings out! The grabbings!”

Willy had lifted his head and turned to look at them. His forked tongue began to flicker out. He hadn’t recognized Freddy, but he dearly loved a practical joke, and now he saw a chance for a good one. He uncoiled and flowed out of the chair, glided silently along the wall—and suddenly reared up until his big flat head with the black expressionless eyes was about an inch from Mr. Condiment’s.

“No cause for alarm, ma’am,” Mr. Condiment was saying. “Such creatures never really existed. They are imaginary, fictional—in short …” Then he saw Willy.

For a second he didn’t say anything or do anything, but he had rather lank, colorless hair, and Freddy said afterwards that it rose right straight up on his head.

Willy said: “Hello … Want a little hug?”

This was Willy’s standard greeting. But Mr. Condiment didn’t know that. He gave a yell that made everybody outside on Main Street look around and say: “I wonder where the fire is?” and then he left, and I guess it was lucky the door was open or he would have taken it right with him.

“Thanks, Willy,” said Freddy, and the snake turned sharply and stared at him.

“Freddy?” he said. “Well, for Pete’s sake!” And he began to laugh so hard that he shook all the way down to the end of his tail. “My, my, aren’t you pretty! I bet you drive all the boys crazy. Golly, I’ve just got to hug you, Freddy.”

It was Willy’s idea of a joke always to pretend to be so glad to see his friends that he had to hug them, and then he’d throw a couple loops around them and squeeze them until their eyes stuck out.

“Don’t stop me now,” said Freddy. “That’s old Condiment, and I have to talk to him. I’ve got an idea. I think maybe I can scare him into letting Rose and Mr. Boom alone.”

So Willy said all right, and he could have a rain check on the hug.

Mr. Condiment had made straight for the hotel, and Freddy caught up with him in the lobby, where he had dropped into a chair and was mopping his forehead.

“Oh, Señor Condimento, is wrong something?” Freddy asked. “You feeling sick?”

“Sick!” Mr. Condiment exclaimed. “That dreadful snake!”

“Snake?” said Freddy. “Why, Señor, I no see snakes. We just look at picture of snake in those comicals.”

“This was no picture,” Mr. Condiment said. “Why, it was right between us!” He stared at Freddy. “You mean you didn’t really see it?”

Freddy gave a little tittering laugh. “Why. Señor Condimento!” he said. “You trying to frighten me?”

He stared at the pig, “You really didn’t see anything?”

“You know what I think?” Freddy said. “Me, I just little Spanish girl, I got no brains much. What I think—that comical, Lair of Great Serpent. You make that book, you see it many times. Well, you just dream it. Awake-dreaming, yes?”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Condiment dismally. “That was a dreadful experience, a horrible occurrence—I mean to say, a ghastly happening.”

“But it hoppen only once, is no bad. Oh si, if all comicals come alive—Lorna, the Leopard Woman, Demon Woman of Gristly Gulch—”

“Grisly,” said Mr. Condiment.

“Si, gristly. Be bad, no?”

“Don’t,” said Mr. Condiment, covering his eyes with his hand.

“Bueno, I not say more. Because—oh, Señor, I see you in these bookstore; I say to myself: is kind, that hombre, has kind face. He no be mad if I ask him advice.”

Nobody had ever told Mr. Condiment that he had a kind face before, and even he himself probably knew that it was a pretty poor description. But the funny thing was that when he took his hand down and looked at Freddy, there really was an almost kind expression in his eyes. “Glad to do what I can,” he said. “Anything within reason—in short, any assistance that is purely verbal.”

“Ah, Señor!” Freddy was getting tired of the ‘Señor’ but it certainly sounded good and Spanish. “Lorna is not clever, but Lorna know if man and woman is kind and good. My mother say to me: ‘Lorna,’ she say, ‘maybe you talk foolish, and no can get out of fourth grade in school, but one thing, you will be able to pick good husband.’ You married, Señor Condimento?”

“I am affianced,” he replied. “Betrothed—that is, engaged.”

“Ay di mi!” said Freddy. “Is my bad luck!”

Mr. Condiment was looking at him suspiciously. “What did you say your name was—Lorna?” he demanded. “What’s your last name?”

“Del Pardo,” said Freddy. “Lorna Del Pardo is silly name, no? Condimento so much prettier. Lorna Del Condimento—so distinguished sounding. Could break these engagement, Señor Condimento?”

“Del Pardo!” said Mr. Condiment. It was the last name of Lorna, the Leopard Woman in his comic books. He looked scared, and he got up quickly. Without another word he walked out of the room.

Freddy went over to the desk, behind which Mr. Ollie Groper, the proprietor, was sitting. Mr. Groper heaved himself to his feet. “Good afternoon, madam,” he said. “If you require a temporary local domicile, this hostelry is prepared to offer accommodation suitable to your requirements, however exigent.”

“What lovely language!” said Freddy with a giggle. Then he lifted his veil and said: “I wish I had time to swap polysyllables with you, Mr. Groper, but I’ve got a lot to do and I need your help.”

“Freddy!” Mr. Groper exclaimed. “Well now ain’t this an unanticipated gratification! And these modish habiliments! Well, well; command me, duchess,” and he shook with laughter.

So Freddy told him about Mr. Boomschmidt’s dilemma, and how Mr. Condiment, by making the circus go broke, was trying to force Mademoiselle Rose to marry him. “He’s got Mr. Boom over a barrel,” he said, “and unless I can do something soon, Rose will just have to marry him. I’m trying to do something about that plane, but I’m trying also to scare old Condiment off. I’m trying to work the same scheme on him that he is working on Rose. Now here’s the idea.”

Mr. Groper laughed so hard while Freddy was telling him that he had to be helped into his chair. But he agreed to do everything that Freddy wanted. “This here Condiment ain’t nothing but a human streptococcus and if I can hasten his departure from this hostelry—” The rest of his speech was rather long, and Freddy did not understand it very well, though he gathered that Mr. Condiment did nothing but complain about everything in the hotel, which he appeared to blame for his stomach ache.

“Tomorrow evening then,” Freddy said as he left.

“Tomorrow evening,” Mr. Groper agreed. “I anticipate a pretty gol-darned diverting soirée.”