A BIRD FLEW NORTH—
Perhaps the most disgusted man in all North America was a man of about 30, with aristocratic features, clad in Mexican costume with pink silk shirt, corduroy suit, and dollar-studded black velvet sombrero, who was sitting, arms folded, glum and dejected in demeanor, on a long crude wooden bench at the edge of King George’s Airport, Hudson Bay, Northern Canada, in company with a half-dozen dour yet curious striped-blanketed Indians, the whole crowd watching the conditioning, by several oily-faced overalled mechanics, of the Hudson Bay Development Company’s huge passenger-and-goods plane, Giganticus, for its flight back to New York City scheduled for 6 p.m. that night. Scarcely a mile from the huge cleared landing field could be seen the impenetrable edge of almost virgin forest, while just in back of the man in the Mexican suit was civilization of sorts: a low split-log building, powerfully constructed, however, with full log pillars, so as, no doubt, to be able to carry tons of snow atop it in winter, and with a huge removable clock hung on its front showing the time to be, right now, 3:40 in the afternoon. And emphasizing, moreover, that by the time this huge plane started back—with this particular Mexican-clad watcher in it!—that particular individual would have been exactly 12 hours in this hole—this none-too-warm hole, for he shivered a bit as a breeze came off Hudson Bay in back of him, though blessed his stars at the same time that yesterday morning, in good old New York, he had, almost by accident, donned a fresh suit of underwear that was every bit of 2/3’ds wool! Indeed, that huge clock gazing so innocently down on desolate St. George’s Airport, Hudson Bay, North America, seemed to scream forth the sad fact that by the time this big plane, standing but 50 feet off from the long bench of watchers, was back in New York City by 2 a.m. tomorrow, the Mexican-clad watcher on that bench would have been out of New York exactly 25 hours from the time he departed therefrom!
Thus—the most disgusted man in all North America. Unless, perchance, the most disgusted man was one, Manuel Topaz, of New York City, skilled Mexican hydraulic-worker, capable of earning $15 a day and board, who had been hired the previous afternoon by the Personnel Department of the Hudson Bay Development Company on Sixth Avenue—and the fact thereof definitely communicated, by phone, in front of Manuel, to some executives and stockholders due to fly there that night. Or rather—at 55 minutes after midnight! For Manuel, running at and around 12:56 a.m., the early morning now gone, for the company’s plane Giganticus, drawn up on Arrow Airfield—but scheduled to pull off at 12:55 sharp, so as to just clear the field for the take-off of some Arkansas-bound airliner, had seen the door of the waiting Giganticus close on a flamboyant countryman of his own who had vaulted up to it—a countryman with pink silk shirt—bah and Jesu Christe!—taxi down the field with a roar and take off—non-stop!—into the night, leaving him, Manuel Topaz, expert hydraulic worker, hired at $15 the day and board, standing on Arrow Airfield—and with no more planes bound Hudson-Bayward for one half a week. The while—as Manuel had learned early this morning—the Personnel Department of the H. B. D. C. claimed stoutly they had hired no other hydraulic worker in his place—let alone Mexican!—and that, since no communication was possible with Hudson Bay, the accidental Mexican traveler’s name would not be learnable until the company’s plane, doubtlessly bringing him back, landed at 2 a.m. tomorrow.
Thus, perhaps, the two most disgusted men in North America—a spurious Mexican—and a real one.